First, a quoted paragraph from the paper on illustrating why conservative (belief first) thinking is wrong and why they have difficulty learning and accepting information contrary to their beliefs (as do we, though it is less prominent). Second, a three paragraph diatribe on my thoughts (if you care to read). Last, I attached the full paper which I read some time ago and was reminded of after yesterdays election: Two concepts turn out to be central in the study of sequential learning in social networks. The first is whether the likelihood ratio implied by individual signals is always finite and bounded away from 0.2 Smith and Sorensen (2000) refer to beliefs that satisfy this property as bounded (private) beliefs. With bounded beliefs, there is a maximum amount of information in any individual signal. In contrast, when there exist signals with arbitrarily high and low likelihood ratios, (private) beliefs are unbounded. Whether bounded or unbounded beliefs provide a better approximation to reality is partly an interpretational and partly an empirical question. The main result of Smith and Sorensen is that when each individual observes all past actions and private beliefs are unbounded, information will be aggregated and the correct action will be chosen asymptotically. In contrast, the results in Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer and Welch (1992), Banerjee (1992), and Smith and Sorensen (2000) indicate that with bounded beliefs, there will not be asymptotic learning (or information aggregation). Instead, as emphasized by Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer and Welch (1992) and Banerjee (1992), there will be “herding” or “informational cascades”, where individuals copy past actions and/or completely ignore their own signals. [ Recall; Fox News, belief deception, the rejection of science, close mindedness, etc.] I like to think of myself as someone who always questions my beliefs. Most of you on this forum I hope do the same. I do it because there is such an invidious gulf between my framework of the world and those of the ultra-conservative right, i.e. their entire party, and even some of you. In addition, this approach has the ancillary benefit of rejecting biased nonsense. Ultimately, I think (as do they about their group) that our group does a better job of self-correcting, this is why we have a reputation for eating our own while the conservatives are known for lock-step thinking where dissension of thought is considered a felonious taboo. One would spend an eternity in a room full of the other party and never see a disagreement other than how bad of a job one individual or the other did at criticizing our side (a most unfortunate but necessary statement of in-group out-group thinking on my part). Many of you have read studies in various journals and publications which state certain groups have a larger amygdila - perhaps a belief-induced neurophysiological phenomenon - that may explain the over reliance on fear as a guide to decision making. I remember reading this study a while back, and I think it beneficial if some of you give it a close reading (some of the math may be difficult, dont allow it to deter you, grasping the concepts and reasoning is not a problem). It gives a fairly good explanation on the strangeness you see on Fox News, Talk Radio, and now, at our City Commission.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 01:32:12 +0000
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