Modelling Opinion Formation with Physics Tools: Call for Closer Link with Reality

Abstract

The growing field of studies of opinion formation using physical formalisms and computer simulation based tools suffers from relative lack of connection to the 'real world' societal behaviour. Such sociophysics research should aim at explaining observations or at proposing new ones. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, as many works concentrate more on the models themselves than on the social phenomena. Moreover, the simplifications proposed in simulations often sacrifice realism on the altar of computability. There are several ways to improve the value of the research, the most important by promoting truly multidisciplinary cooperation between physicists aiming to describe social phenomena and sociologists studying the phenomena in the field. In the specific case of modelling of opinion formation there are a few technical ideas which might bring the computer models much closer to reality, and therefore to improve the predictive value of the sociophysics approach.