Preference Falsification, Coalitional Psychology, and the Persistence of Norms

• In Event: Experiments Involving Norms and Trust

Abstract

In this study, I address two broad questions. First, can norms of public expression persist even when the individuals making the pronouncements do not themselves agree with or believe in them? Second, how do people weigh preferences for consistency between public and private beliefs vs. preferences for complying with their social groups? To examine these questions, I perform a multi-wave panel survey in which subjects are initially asked their political identities and a series of attitudinal questions. In follow-up waves, subjects are paired with others whose political party affiliations are made public and they are asked to respond to questions that were previously asked on the first wave. A random subset is later asked to play public goods games with their partners. Subjects receive a bonus for publicly responding in a way that is consistent with their own responses on the first-wave survey and a bonus of the same amount for responding in a way that is consistent with their partner in the current trial. I find that the prospect of the public goods game makes subjects more likely to abandon the safe option of being consistent with their own past pronouncements in favor of falsifying their preferences to more closely match the perceived views of their partners, and that this effect is more pronounced among co-partisans. This provides some of the first empirical evidence supporting the idea that people are willing to misrepresent their opinions in order to maintain beneficial coalitions.

Author

• David J. Hendry, London School of Economics