Javascript is disabled in your browser. This page will look and function better with Javascript. Political polarization i. Furthermore, it has shown the ability of extending also to new topics, such as climate change and COVID vaccination, strongly limiting the ability of our society to face major challenges Farrell 1. Two predominant approaches exist in explaining polarization: the social comparison approach Myers et al.
Neither approach, however, can fully account for polarization Isenberg A two-process model has been proposed to overcome this limitation, but the social identification approach has been suggested as a more comprehensive explanation of polarization Hogg et al. The self-categorization approach posits that information will only be accepted as valid if they come from an ingroup member, and provides a singular explanation for polarization that encompasses both the informational influence and social comparison approaches Hogg et al.
The Social Identification Approach SIA is an important framework for understanding polarization, as it provides a comprehensive explanation of how attitudes become properties of social groups and how polarization develops. This approach claims that people perceive themselves and others fundamentally as members of social groups, and this transforms their perceptions and behaviour Sherif ; Tajfel et al.
This approach is supported by extensive empirical evidence and has also been shown to be an excellent candidate for understanding phenomena such as steadily increasing political polarization Bliuc et al. One of the most common approaches in this field is to simplify our society to a set of agents interacting in pairs or small groups Castellano et al.
Usually agents do not have perceptions of broader social structures. Rather, their behavior depends uniquely on the agent or small number of agents they are interacting with or are adjacent to Axelrod ; Deffuant et al.
