Tanzhe Tang

The growing polarization of our societies and economies has been extensively studied in various disciplines and is subject to public controversy. Yet, measuring polarization is hampered by the discrepancy between how polarization is conceptualized and measured. For instance, the notion of group, especially groups that are identified based on similarities between individuals, is key to conceptualizing polarization but is usually neglected when measuring polarization. To address the issue, this paper presents a new polarization measurement based on a grouping method called “Equal Size Binary Grouping” (ESBG) for both uni- and multi-dimensional discrete data, which satisfies a range of desired properties. Inspired by techniques of clustering, ESBG divides the population into two groups of equal sizes based on similarities between individuals, while overcoming certain theoretical and practical problems afflicting other grouping methods, such as discontinuity and contradiction of reasoning. Our new polarization measurement and the grouping method are illustrated by applying them to a two-dimensional synthetic data set. By means of a so-called “squeezing-and-moving” framework, we show that our measurement is closely related to bipolarization and could help stimulate further empirical research.

In the field of opinion dynamics, the hiding of opinions is routinely modeled as staying silent. However, staying silent is not always feasible. In situations where opinions are indirectly expressed by one’s observable actions, people may however try to hide their opinions via a more complex and intelligent strategy called obfuscation, which minimizes the information disclosed to others. This study proposes a formal opinion dynamics model to study the hitherto unexplored effect of obfuscation on public opinion formation based on the recently developed Action-Opinion Inference Model. For illustration purposes, we use our model to simulate two cases with different levels of complexity, highlighting that the effect of obfuscation largely depends on the subtle relations between actions and opinions.