Pro- and Anti-Science Opinion Model (PASOM) Documentation

This document describes the Pro- and Anti-Science Opinions Model (PASOM)—an agent-based model (ABM) of social media activity around a single topic. The topic is one with a true (or likely true) belief (a pro-science belief) and a false (or likely false) belief (an anti-science belief), and agents update their beliefs over the probability of each position being true based on the actions of their connections. The model was designed to examine the potential role of toxic behaviour in social media interactions based on Spiral of Silence Theory predictions and incorporates sanctions and expected sanctions against opposition views, in the form of toxic behaviour. Toxic behaviour can cause agents’ views to be silenced as they attempt to avoid toxic interactions with opposing agents, which may allow agents to be persuaded to change their mind.