About renegades and outgroup-haters: Modelling the link between social influence and intergroup attitudes

Polarization between groups is a major topic of contemporary societal debate and research. Formal models of opinion dynamics try to explain how intergroup polarization arises from simple first principles of social interaction. In existing models, intergroup attitudes affect social influence in the form of homophily or xenophobia, fixed tendencies of individuals to be more open to influence from ingroup members or distance themselves from attitudes of outgroup members. These models generate polarization between groups, but they neglect a central insight from empirical research. Intergroup attitudes are themselves subject to social influence in interactions with both in- and outgroup members. A model is proposed in which the attitude which is subject to social influence is also an intergroup attitude. It affects in turn the influence process itself. Furthermore, it is shown how this changes model predictions about process and conditions of polarization between groups. More complex patterns of intergroup relations emerge than in a model with fixed xenophobia. Especially, a renegade minority (‘outgroup lovers’) is found to have a key role in avoiding mutually negative intergroup relations and even elicit reversed polarization, resulting in a majority of individuals developing a negative attitude towards their ingroup and a positive one for the outgroup.