Reasoning About Group Polarization: From Semantic Games to Sequent Systems
Robert Freiman, Carlos Alberto Olarte, Elaine Gouvêa Pimentel, Christian G. Fermüller · EPiC series in computing · 2024
Group polarization, the phenomenon where individuals become more extreme after in- teracting, has been gaining attention, especially with the rise of social media shaping peo- ple’s opinions. Recent interest has emerged in formal reasoning about group polarization using logical systems. In this work we consider the modal logic PNL that captures the no- tion of agents agreeing or disagreeing on a given topic. Our contribution involves enhancing PNL with advanced formal reasoning techniques, instead of relying on axiomatic systems for analyzing group polarization. To achieve this, we introduce a semantic game tailored for (hybrid) extensions of PNL. This game fosters dynamic reasoning about concrete net- work models, aligning with our goal of strengthening PNL’s effectiveness in studying group polarization. We show how this semantic game leads to a provability game by systemically exploring the truth in all models. This leads to the first cut-free sequent systems for some variants of PNL. Using polarization of formulas, the proposed calculi can be modularly adapted to consider different frame properties of the underlying model.