IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0242148.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Private-Public Opinion Discrepancy

Author

Listed:
  • Ren Manfredi
  • Andrea Guazzini
  • Carla Anne Roos
  • Tom Postmes
  • Namkje Koudenburg

Abstract

In many Western societies there are rising concerns about increasing polarization in public debate. However, statistics on private attitudes paint a different picture: the average attitudes in societies are more moderate and remain rather stable over time. The present paper presents an agent-based model of how such discrepancies between public opinion and private attitudes develop at the scale of micro-societies. Based on social psychological theorizing, the model distinguishes between two types of agents: a) those seeking to gain or maintain a good reputation and status, and b) those seeking to promote group harmony by reaching consensus. We characterized these different types of agents by different decision rules for either voicing their opinion or remaining silent, based on the behavior of their proximal network. Results of the model simulations show that even when the private attitudes of the agents are held constant, publicly expressed opinions can oscillate and (depending on the reputational concerns of individual actors) situations can occur in which minorities as well as majorities are silenced. We conclude that the macro-level consequences of micro-level decisions to either voice an opinion or remain silent provide a foundation for better understanding how public opinions are shaped. Moreover, we discuss the conditions under which public opinion could be considered a good representation of private attitudes in a society.

Suggested Citation

  • Ren Manfredi & Andrea Guazzini & Carla Anne Roos & Tom Postmes & Namkje Koudenburg, 2020. "Private-Public Opinion Discrepancy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-24, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0242148
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242148
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0242148
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0242148&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0242148?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron & Józef Sznajd, 2000. "Opinion Evolution In Closed Community," International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(06), pages 1157-1165.
    2. Kuran, Timur, 1987. "Preference Falsification, Policy Continuity and Collective Conservatism," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 642-665, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francisco J. León-Medina & Jordi Tena-Sánchez & Francisco J. Miguel, 2020. "Fakers becoming believers: how opinion dynamics are shaped by preference falsification, impression management and coherence heuristics," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 385-412, April.
    2. Kaye-Blake, William & Li, Frank Y. & Martin, A. McLeish & McDermott, Alan & Neil, Hayley & Rains, Scott, 2009. "A review of Multi-Agent Simulation Models in Agriculture," 2009 Conference, August 27-28, 2009, Nelson, New Zealand 97165, New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    3. Shang, Lihui & Zhao, Mingming & Ai, Jun & Su, Zhan, 2021. "Opinion evolution in the Sznajd model on interdependent chains," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 565(C).
    4. Lu, Xi & Mo, Hongming & Deng, Yong, 2015. "An evidential opinion dynamics model based on heterogeneous social influential power," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 98-107.
    5. Célestin Coquidé & José Lages & Dima Shepelyansky, 2024. "Opinion Formation in the World Trade Network," Post-Print hal-04461784, HAL.
    6. Xiaolan Qian & Wenchen Han & Junzhong Yang, 2024. "From the DeGroot Model to the DeGroot-Non-Consensus Model: The Jump States and the Frozen Fragment States," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-13, January.
    7. Dimitris Tsintsaris & Milan Tsompanoglou & Evangelos Ioannidis, 2024. "Dynamics of Social Influence and Knowledge in Networks: Sociophysics Models and Applications in Social Trading, Behavioral Finance and Business," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-27, April.
    8. David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 2002. "An Economic Approach to the Psychology of Change: Amnesia, Inertia, and Impulsiveness," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), pages 379-421, September.
    9. Bertram During & Nicos Georgiou & Enrico Scalas, 2016. "A stylized model for wealth distribution," Papers 1609.08978, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    10. Hang-Hyun Jo & Jeoung-Yoo Kim, 2012. "Competitive Targeted Marketing," ISER Discussion Paper 0834, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    11. Schlicht, Ekkehart, 1992. "On Custom," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 37769, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    12. María Cecilia Gimenez & Luis Reinaudi & Ana Pamela Paz-García & Paulo Marcelo Centres & Antonio José Ramirez-Pastor, 2021. "Opinion evolution in the presence of constant propaganda: homogeneous and localized cases," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 94(1), pages 1-11, January.
    13. Bell, Ann Maria, 2002. "Locally interdependent preferences in a general equilibrium environment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 309-333, March.
    14. Ricardo Almeida & Agnieszka B. Malinowska & Tatiana Odzijewicz, 2019. "Optimal Leader–Follower Control for the Fractional Opinion Formation Model," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 1171-1185, September.
    15. Toth, Gabor & Galam, Serge, 2022. "Deviations from the majority: A local flip model," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    16. Barry Eichengreen & Orkun Saka & Cevat Giray Aksoy, 2024. "The Political Scar of Epidemics," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(660), pages 1683-1700.
    17. Piotr Przybyła & Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron & Rafał Weron, 2014. "Diffusion Of Innovation Within An Agent-Based Model: Spinsons, Independence And Advertising," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(01), pages 1-22.
    18. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-00623966 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Diao, Su-Meng & Liu, Yun & Zeng, Qing-An & Luo, Gui-Xun & Xiong, Fei, 2014. "A novel opinion dynamics model based on expanded observation ranges and individuals’ social influences in social networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 415(C), pages 220-228.
    20. Guzmán-Vargas, L. & Hernández-Pérez, R., 2006. "Small-world topology and memory effects on decision time in opinion dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 372(2), pages 326-332.
    21. Sethi, Rajiv, 1996. "Evolutionary stability and social norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 113-140, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0242148. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.