Russell Golman, George Loewenstein, Karl Ove Moene, and Luca Zarri, “The Preference for Belief Consonance.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30(3): 165-188, Summer 2016 [pdf].
• People like to have beliefs that accord with the beliefs of others. Sharing beliefs enhances our connection to our group.
• Much of world conflict is about beliefs – often about rather subtle differences in beliefs. Recall that people protect beliefs in which they have invested heavily.
• Conflict over small differences in beliefs might arise because our beliefs are most threatened by those who are otherwise similar to us.
• People do not like to have their beliefs challenged, so media have incentives not to challenge beliefs.
• Beliefs might come first, and only then do we develop the “rational” reasons that we hold them; see Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Pantheon, 2012.
• Belief consonance can be self-reinforcing: when someone stubbornly refuses to agree with me, I can attribute her stubbornness to her own interest in protecting her initial beliefs – and therefore I do not have to reconsider my own beliefs.
• In the interest of possessing consonant beliefs, all people might believe X, but believe that everyone else believes “not X”: “pluralistic ignorance”. See Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification, Harvard, 1998.
• In trust and dictator games, people are more generous when paired with members of their own political party.
• Two (complementary?) approaches to the enticements of belief consonance: (1) desire to match beliefs with a group that you are in, or want to join; and (2) desire to maintain desirable beliefs about yourself.
• On the whole, belief consonance probably is detrimental to society.
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