Dual Attitude Model of Opinion Diffusion: Experiments with Epistemically Motivated Agents

Opinion diffusion is often simulated in agent-based models to reveal the perpetuation of norms and beliefs. This paper presents a dual attitude model where agents' interaction, information search, and opinion formation are influenced by the need for cognitive closure (NFCC). Two experiments simulated topic advocacy with either high- or low-NFCC agents. Experiment one initiated societies with unbiased distribution of NFCC levels between advocates of two competing topics, while experiment two initiated biased distributions of NFCC levels between the topics. Results in the unbiased condition showed that the popularity of the majority topic increases over time in high NFCC societies while it decreases over time in low NFCC societies. These results are magnified in the biased context where high NFCC agents provided an NFCC-advantage for their advocaed topic. When high NFCC agents' advocated topic is the majority or equal at initiation, the topic's popularity will increase significantly over time. When high NFCC agents' advocated topic is minority at initiation, these agents resist the assimilative pressures of the majority topic to protect their own topic from popularity losses. Tracking simulations over time revealed different dynamics generated between the two experimental conditions, and showed the roles low NFCC agents and edge-of-cluster agents play in enabling the emergence of such patterns. These results may shed light on the impact NFCC individuals have in within-society and between-societies cultural shifts.