by LISA ZYGA
Diagram of the model structure. Arrows indicate which types of speakers can convert listeners from one subpopulation to another. Members of the committed A population, the zealots, cannot be converted. When zealots reach a certain threshold of the population, they are capable of converting everyone to their perspective. CREDIT/Marvel, et al. ©2012 American
We live in a world of extremes, where being fervently for or against an issue often becomes the dominant social ideology – until an opposing belief that is equally extreme emerges to challenge the first one, eventually becoming the new social paradigm. And so the cycle repeats, with one ideological extreme replacing another, and neither delivering a sustainable solution. Political revolutions, economic bubbles, booms and busts in consumer confidence, and short-lived reforms such as Prohibition in the US all follow this kind of cycle. Why, researchers want to know, does a majority of the population not settle on an intermediate position that blends the best of the old and new?
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