Polarisation
The polarisation of opinions is an important and probably increasing societal problem. This theme group aims to look for new avenues of collaboration in polarisation research across disciplines.
Polarisation across individuals leads to the formation of distinct factions which prevents us from reaching consensus on important societal issues. Individual cases of polarisation, radicalisation for instance, sometimes lead to harmful extremist behaviours.
Various scientific disciplines study these types of processes. Psychology studies the formation of attitudes in individuals, whereas sociology and political science are concerned with the collective properties of polarisation. These collective properties are also studied in statistical physics and computational science. Over the last decade, the statistical physics of social dynamics became a field in itself, with many different approaches to the formal modelling and simulation of social phenomena.
Scientific lead:
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Programme group Psychological Methods
UvA researchers
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Programme group: Cultural Sociology
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Programme group: Political Sociology: Power, Place and Difference
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Programme group Social Psychology
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Programme group: Challenges to Democratic Representation
Affiliated external researchers
- Brian Castellani (University of Durham, IAS fellow)
- Andreas Flache (University of Groningen, IAS fellow)
- Lasse Gerrits (Erasmus University Rotterdam, IAS fellow)
- Michael Mäs (University of Groningen)