Justifying dissent

Arbeitspapier

Dissent plays an important role in any society, but dissenters are often silenced through social sanctions. Beyond their persuasive effects, rationales providing arguments supporting dissenters' causes can increase the public expression of dissent by providing a "social cover" for voicing otherwisestigmatized positions. Motivated by a simple theoretical framework, we experimentally show that liberals are more willing to post a Tweet opposing the movement to defund the police, are seen as less prejudiced, and face lower social sanctions when their Tweet implies they had first read scientific evidence supporting their position. Analogous experiments with conservatives demonstrate that the same mechanisms facilitate anti-immigrant expression. Our findings highlight both the power of rationales and their limitations in enabling dissent and shed light on phenomena such as social movements, political correctness, propaganda, and anti-minority behavior.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ECONtribute Discussion Paper ; No. 141

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Capitalist Systems: Political Economy ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
• Subject: Dissent ; social image ; rationales ; social media

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bursztyn, Leonardo ; Egorov, Georgij V. ; Haaland, Ingar ; Rao, Aakaash ; Roth, Christopher
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Reinhard Selten Institute (RSI)
• (where): Bonn and Cologne
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/252302
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET