Opinion polarization in the Receipt-Accept-Sample model
Abstract
The Zaller theory of opinion formation is reformulated with one free parameter μ, which measures the largest possible ideological distance which can be made by a citizen in one mental step. Our numerical results show the transient effects: i) the political awareness, measured by the number of received messages, increases with time first exponentially, later linearly; ii) for small μ correlations are present between previously and newly received messages; iii) these correlation lead to a hyperdiffusion effect in the space of attitudes of messages. Citizens with small μ are more prone to extremal opinions.
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