Group Identity and Belief Formation: A Microfoundation of Political Polarization

Clicks: 4
ID: 325283
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #27 of 264 articles by views in the economic journal

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 264 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract To evaluate the impact of group identity on belief formation, we conducted online experiments before and after the 2020 US presidential election. We elicit participants’ beliefs about future unemployment statistics and health system rankings and provide relevant news summaries. We find that people pay money to avoid information from political outgroups and attribute lower weight to this information when updating beliefs. An intervention which unlabels information sources decreases outgroup information avoidance by 50%, with a significant impact on only groupish participants. A debiasing intervention equalizing instrumental values of information sources reduces only universalists’ WTP for a private signal. The interventions have little effect on information processing. The evidence is consistent with a source-utility channel contributing to polarization.
Reference Key
openalex_W7203716064 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Kevin Bauer, Yan Chen, Florian Hett, Michael Kosfeld
Journal the economic journal
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/ej/ueag105
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueag105
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.