Rationalizations and Political Polarization

Department of Economics and Decision Sciences

Speaker:  Yves Le Yaouanq (CREST-IP Paris)

Room T-014

Abstract :

We propose a model that formalizes influential results in political psychology documenting how moral and political judgments are primarily based on intuitions and emotions, while reasoning merely serves to rationalize these intuitions in pursuit of an image as a reasonable decision-maker. In social interactions between both co-partisans and counter-partisans, agents’ rationalizations are strategic complements, as an increase in others’ rationalizations undermines their ability to critically judge the agent, and implies that their actions become less informative of the true state. When agents are naive about their own rationalizations, our model generates both ideological and affective polarization, with agents assigning inappropriate motives to counter-partisans. The ability to communicate rationalizations decreases polarization in cross-partisan interactions and may increase it in co-partisan interactions. Their self-image concerns cause agents to self-select into co-partisan interactions or echo chambers. Our model sheds light on the origin of partisan disagreement about the consequences of public policies, matches empirical facts about polarization, and speaks to the effects of initiatives that seek to break up echo chambers.

Joint work with : Peter Schwardmann and Joël J. van der Weele