Hate and stereotypes aren't born from bad facts, but from how the human brain organizes information.
April 14, 2026
Original Paper
Emergence of Stereotypes and Affective Polarization from Belief Network Dynamics
arXiv · 2604.10251
The Takeaway
Social polarization and prejudice can emerge entirely from a drive for internal cognitive coherence, even without real-world conflict or misinformation. This suggests that prejudice is an emergent byproduct of our mental filing system rather than a bug caused by external propaganda.
From the abstract
Our belief systems are shaped by social processes, such as observations and influence, and by cognitive processes, such as the drive for internal coherence. These processes steer how individual beliefs evolve and become connected. The resulting belief networks contain both causal and associative links, including spurious ones, such as stereotypes. Here, we develop an agent-based model of belief networks that demonstrates how two basic mechanisms -- social interaction and a drive for internal coh