An agent-based model of multi-dimensional opinion dynamics and opinion alignment.

It is known that individual opinions on different policy issues often align to a dominant ideological dimension (e.g., left vs right) and become increasingly polarized. We provide an agent-based model that reproduces alignment and polarization as emergent properties of opinion dynamics in a multi-dimensional space of continuous opinions. The mechanisms for the change of agents' opinions in this multi-dimensional space are derived from cognitive dissonance theory and structural balance theory. We test assumptions from proximity voting and from directional voting regarding their ability to reproduce the expected emerging properties. We further study how the emotional involvement of agents, i.e., their individual resistance to change opinions, impacts the dynamics. We identify two regimes for the global and the individual alignment of opinions. If the affective involvement is high and shows a large variance across agents, this fosters the emergence of a dominant ideological dimension. Agents align their opinions along this dimension in opposite directions, i.e., create a state of polarization.

Attend or defend? Sex differences in behavioral, autonomic, and respiratory response patterns to emotion-eliciting films.

Sex differences in emotional reactivity have been studied primarily for negative but less so for positive stimuli; likewise, sex differences in the psychophysiological response-patterning during such stimuli are poorly understood. Thus, the present study examined sex differences in response to negative/positive and high/low arousing films (classified as threat-, loss-, achievement-, and recreation-related, vs. neutral films), while measuring 18 muscular, autonomic, and respiratory parameters. Sex differences emerged for all films, but were most prominent for threat-related films: Despite equivalent valence and arousal ratings, women displayed more facial-muscular and respiratory responding than men and pronounced sympathetic activation (preejection period, other cardiovascular and electrodermal measures), while men showed coactivated sympathetic/parasympathetic responding (including increased respiratory sinus arrhythmia). This indicates a prototypical threat-related defense response in women, while men showed a pattern of sustained orienting, which can be understood as a shift toward less threat proximity in the defense cascade model. Clinical implications are discussed within a socio-evolutionary framework.