How culture can affect opinion dynamics: the case of vaccination

Culture plays a pivotal role in shaping collective level processes, with implications for public opinion on issues such as COVID-19 vaccination. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimension theory, we theoretically examine the influence of two key dimensions of culture, individualism/collectivism and power distance, on the opinion formation of individuals within a dynamic and evolving context. While former models suggest that collectivism promotes opinion consensus, our findings reveal a more complex relationship, particularly in scenarios where centralization or decentralization of a society is considered. By conducting multiple simulation experiments through an agent-based model, we find that collectivism can contribute to opinion consensus in a simple scenario in which only social norms work without any impact from authorities. However, a collectivist society also has the potential to experience high opinion polarization in the presence of greater decentralization among authorities, particularly in settings of high power distance. Simulation results further demonstrate that disagreement between authorities is more likely to result in opinion polarization in individualist cultures compared to collectivist cultures.