Cognitive Dissonance Approach

Explaining Preferences from Behavior: A Cognitive Dissonance Approach

Avidit Acharya, Stanford University Matthew Blackwell, Harvard University Maya Sen, Harvard University

The standard approach in positive political theory posits that action choices are the consequences of preferences. Social psychology—in particular, cognitive dissonance theory—suggests the opposite: preferences may themselves be affected by action choices. We present a framework that applies this idea to three models of political choice: (1) one in which partisanship emerges naturally in a two-party system despite policy being multidimensional, (2) one in which interactions with people who express different views can lead to empathetic changes in political positions, and (3) one in which ethnic or racial hostility increases after acts of violence. These examples demonstrate how incorporating the insights of social psychology can expand the scope of formalization in political science.

hat are the origins of interethnic hostility? How Our framework builds on an insight originating in social do young people become lifelong Republicans or psychology with the work of Festinger (1957) that suggests WDemocrats? What causes people to change deeply that actions could affect preferences through cognitive dis- held political preferences? These questions are the bedrock of sonance. One key aspect of cognitive dissonance theory is many inquiries within political science. Numerous articles that individuals experience a mental discomfort after taking and books study the determinants of racism, partisanship, actions that appear to be in conflict with their starting pref- and preference change. Throughout, a theme linking these erences. To minimize or avoid this discomfort, they change seemingly disparate literatures is the formation and evolution their preferences to more closely align with their actions. of political and social preferences as an object of study. We show via three examples that the cognitive dissonance Although the empirical literature in these areas is well approach can be applied to settings in politics in which in- developed, formal theories of preference change have been dividuals make choices and then later change their intrinsic substantially more scarce in political science.1 This is in part preferences to be consistent with those choices. Because the because much of positive political theory has focused on tra- theory views preferences as the consequences of actions, the ditional rational choice approaches, which derive the action approach is well suited to applications where actions are choices of individuals from immutable preferences. In this the main independent variables and preference parameters article, we adopt the perspective that preferences are often the are the dependent variables. Indeed, a vast subfield of political consequence of actions—the opposite of what is posited by science—political behavior—is concerned with the origins of standard rational choice theory. That is, actions do not nec- partisanship, ideology, ethnic identification, and so on. Our essarily reflect the fixed preferences of individuals; they in- examples show how the traditional rational choice approach stead may be chosen for a variety of reasons, including imi- can be extended to provide a better understanding of the tation, experimentation, and habit. Preferences then adjust to sources of these preferences by incorporating ideas from cog- justify the behaviors that were adopted. nitive dissonance theory.

Avidit Acharya ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. Matthew Blackwell ([email protected] vard.edu) is an assistant professor at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Maya Sen ([email protected]) is an associate professor at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Data and supporting materials necessary to reproduce the numerical results in the article are available in the JOP Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu /dataverse/jop). An online appendix with supplementary material is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/694541. 1. There are some exceptions, however. We discuss these below.

The Journal of Politics, volume 80, number 2. Published online March 1, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/694541 q 2018 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved. 0022-3816/2018/8002-0003$10.00

We proceed as follows. We begin by providing a concep- which can be interpreted as a utility. The decision maker seeks tual overview of our approach and by developing the basic to minimize certain costs, which happen to be psychological framework. We then develop the three applications. The first rather than material. Our model uses the language of the demonstrates how the cognitive dissonance approach can rational choice approach—“maximize utility given costs”— explain the development of partisan affiliation. The second to explain preference change. The result is that individuals demonstrates how individuals with differing political pref- bring their preferences into alignment with their actions. erences—but who feel empathy or kinship toward one another—find compromise by adjusting their policy positions. Framework The third shows how cognitive dissonance can explain the We develop our main theoretical framework in this section. emergence and persistence of ethnic or racial hostility from We consider a person with a starting preference parameter acts of violence. We conclude with a discussion of other areas xo, which is fixed. There is an action a that is taken and a of politics in which these ideas may be applied. new preference parameter xn that is chosen by the individual. These choices influence two terms that we refer to as “action ACTIONS CAN AFFECT PREFERENCES dissonance” and “preference change dissonance.” Action dis- n Studies by social psychologists have documented the possi- sonance is given by the function dA(a, x ) that is increasing in bility that action choices affect preferences. For example, some measure of the discrepancy between the action a and Davis and Jones (1960) and Glass (1964) demonstrated that the new preference parameter x n. Preference change disso- n o individuals are likely to lower their opinions of others whom nance is a function dP(x , x ) that is increasing in some mea- they are made to speak ill of or harm. They interpreted these sure of the discrepancy between the new and old preference lowered opinions as consequences of the choice to harm. parameters, x n and x o. “Total dissonance” is the sum of ac- Several other experiments (e.g., Brehm 1956; Festinger 1957; tion and preference change dissonance, Festinger and Carlsmith 1959) provide similar evidence that d(a; xn; xo) p d (a; xn) 1 d (xn; xo): ð1Þ making a choice or undertaking an action—oftentimes blindly A P or forcibly—can lead to an increased preference over time for We can think of the decision maker as seeking to maximize the chosen alternative. The theory has been tested in exper- 2d(a, x n, x o), that is, to minimize total dissonance. In this iments involving young children, animals, and amnesiacs (Lie- case, we can consider u p 2d(a; x n; x o) to be the decision berman et al. 2001), suggesting that the idea that preferences maker’s utility and both a and xn to be choice variables. Al- follow actions may be innate across species. Egan, Bloom, and ternatively, the decision maker may choose the action a ac- Santos (2010) and Egan, Santos, and Bloom (2007), for ex- cording to some behavioral rule (e.g., to maximize a different ample, showed how children and monkeys that chose a certain objective function) and choose xn to maximize u. In yet an- kind of toy or candy would then, in the next round of exper- other alternative, the action may be chosen by someone other imentation, devalue other toys or candies, even when the initial than the decision maker or forced on the decision maker by a choice was made blindly (cf. Chen and Risen 2010). In ad- third party. Or, some components of a may be chosen by the dition, neurologists have documented physiological changes decision maker while other components are chosen by others. consistent with subjects forming stronger commitments to In all of these cases, the decision maker chooses at least x n to their choices after the choice has been made (Sharot, De maximize u, and in this sense maximizing u is an objective of Martino, and Dolan 2009). the decision maker. These findings and their interpretations contrast with the Our first example, on partisanship, considers a simple traditional rational-choice approach. When an action that decision-theoretic problem for a voter choosing a and xn to an individual chooses, or might choose, is in conflict with the minimize total dissonance d(a, xn, xo) absent any strategic individual’s preference, rational choice theory might predict considerations. The next example, on socialization and em- that she will quit choosing the action or avoid it. Depending pathy, considers two individuals who each choose a com- ’ p ; on the individual s preferences, the assumption guiding the ponent of a two-dimensional a (a1 a2) and a new political traditional approach is that preferences dictate actions, not viewpoint xn. This application considers a strategic interac- vice versa (cf. Dietrich and List 2011, 2013). Nevertheless, tion between two individuals. The third example, on attitudes our work demonstrates how the views of social psychology shaped by violence, considers a behavioral model in which can be consistent with a broader interpretation of the ra- the action a is not optimized but rather imitated from others, tional choice approach and may even be considered a part of and agents change their preference parameter xn to cope with it. We develop a framework for how a decision maker chooses the dissonance created by the mismatch between the initial preference parameters to maximize an objective function, preference parameter x o and the nonoptimal a.

Other approaches Our work also differs from other models of preference The discussion above clarifies how the ideas of cognitive dis- change. For example, it differs from evolutionary approaches sonance theory can be consistent with a broad interpretation (e.g., Dekel, Ely, and Yilankaya 2007; Güth and Yaari 1992; of rational choice, but it also makes clear the important caveat Little and Zeitzoff 2017) in that preferences are chosen op- that our approach is not to formalize cognitive dissonance timally rather than being the outcome of a natural selection theory; rather, it is to develop a formal theory of preference process. It differs also from models of endogenous belief change that is inspired by some of the ideas that were de- formation that rely on anticipatory effects of uncertainty veloped in the cognitive dissonance literature. In short, we are (e.g., Benabou 2008; Minozzi 2013). Instead, it is most closely exploring the consequences, not the causes, of cognitive dis- related to the models of Akerlof and Dickens (1982) and Rabin sonance. (1994), who apply the cognitive dissonance concept to study Our focus in this article is on how actions can induce applications in which individuals rationalize the choice of changes in preferences, but there are other studies that use “immoral” actions, and to a recent model by Penn (2017), cognitive dissonance to explain preferences without appeal- who applies the concept to study the endogenous adoption of ing to any action. In one alternative approach, Jost et al. (2003) economically productive skills in understanding economic argue that political ideology is a form of motivated cognition, inequality. Our article differs from these contributions in under which individuals develop ideology in response to deep- that the outcomes of interest in our applications are political seated motivations to reduce uncertainty and perceived threat. preferences, formalized as preference parameters (such as In this framework, cognitive dissonance, along with other fun- ideal points). We now turn to these applications. damental motivations, helps shape a person’s basic political ideology, which in turn forms the basis of preferences over PARTISANSHIP policies and candidates. Changes to the perception of threat In this section, we develop a theory of partisanship based on or uncertainty can lead to changes in ideology. This theory voters who experience psychological costs due to cognitive provides an explanation of how preferences might develop dissonance. The issue space is multidimensional, and voter and change in the absence of any concrete actions, which is preferences are initially distributed across these multiple di- an important consideration but one that we do not model mensions. Political competition between two policy-motivated here. Nevertheless, if taking an action changes a person’sbe- parties endogenously produces an electorate that is ideolog- liefs about threat or uncertainty, actions would lead to ideo- ically unidimensional in the sense that voter preferences be- logical shifts due to cognitive dissonance in both our model come perfectly correlated across dimensions. This occurs be- and that of Jost et al. (2003). In this case, motivated cognition cause voters wanting to minimize cognitive dissonance will would be a force that shapes the initial preferences, xo, which adjust their policy preferences toward the platform of the party would, in turn, affect future preferences. that they support. Partisanship emerges as a natural outcome In addition, early work by Festinger, Riecken, and Schach- of this process. ter (1956) presents evidence that individuals can reinforce their existing beliefs despite learning information that ap- Model pears inconsistent with these beliefs (see also Jost and Banaji The policy space, X p ½0; 1 # ½0; 1, is two-dimensional fl 2 1994; Nyhan and Rei er 2010). Our model does not speak with generic policy denoted (x1, x2). For concreteness, one can directly to this possibility, although some work in behavioral think of the first dimension as economic policy and the sec- economics does address the fact that cognitive dissonance ond dimension as social policy. A left party L runs on policy fl ’ L; L p ; R; R p may arise from the con ict between an individual s existing (x1 x2 ) (0 0), and a right party R runs on policy (x1 x2 ) ; 4 o p o; o ∈ beliefs and new information, or existing beliefs and known (1 1). A voter with initial ideal point x (x 1 x 2) X de- facts (Benabou and Tirole 2006). Our work complements this cides both which party to support and what to choose as her work by maintaining focus on the discrepancies between preferences and actions, rather than the discrepancies between 3 beliefs and information. rewards could crowd out intrinsic motivation. Again, our model does not directly address this kind of application, although some aspects of this theory have also been formalized and developed further by Benabou and 2. Some authors, however, have provided alternative theories to ac- Tirole (2003). count for such evidence. See, e.g., Bem’s (1967) theory of self-perception 4. Here, we assume that parties have fixed party platforms, but in and Cooper and Fazio’s (1984) theory of aversive consequences. app. B, available online, we present a version of this model that allows the 3. In yet another application of cognitive dissonance theory, Festinger parties to choose their positions strategically. Much of the intuition of the and Carlsmith (1959) suggest that the theory explains why monetary more simple approach here carries over to that setting.

n p n; n ∈ new ideal point x (x1 x2 ) X. If the voter supports party cost associated with supporting a party that takes a position p ; ’ j ; j 5 j, then her choice a (a1 a2) equals j s platform (x 1 x 2). different from their own ideal position. The voter has action dissonance and preference change dis- The example provides some support for empirical find- sonance given by ings that document how earlier political actions have down- stream effects on preferences toward parties or candidates. ; n ≔ 2 n 1 g 2 n dA (a x ) ja1 x1 j ja2 x2 j For example, McCann (1997) argues that citizens changed ð2Þ n; o ≔ n 2 o 1 n 2 o ; dP(x x ) k(jx1 x1j gjx2 x 2j) their core values to match the values of their preferred can- didate in a previous presidential election, conjecturing that 1 where g 0 is the salience of the second issue with respect cognitive dissonance may explain the changes. Similarly, Lenz fi 1 to the rst and k 0 represents the salience of preference (2012) shows that voters in the United States first choose a change dissonance with respect to action dissonance. The voter politician to back and then shift their positions to adopt that n ’ chooses a and x to minimize total dissonance, so the voter s leader’s policy views, and Levendusky (2009) shows that elite ; n o ≔ 2 ; n; o preferences are represented by u(a x jx ) d(a x x ), polarization leads to mass opinion sorting along partisan n o where d(a, x , x ), given by (1), is the sum of action and pref- lines.6 erence change dissonance. Finally, the model can be extended to highlight the possibility that variation in political knowledge could affect the Proposition 1. o A voter with initial ideal position (x 1, extent to which cognitive dissonance shapes partisanship. In o o x 2) supports party L if x2 is smaller than particular, voters must know the political positions of the parties in order to incur the psychological cost of being “out 1 1 1 g 1 ℓ(xo) ≔ 2 xo of step” with their party. Low-information voters may have 1 2 g g 1 less cognitive dissonance simply because they are less likely o ℓ o ! 7 and supports party R if x2 is greater than (x1). If k 1, to have knowledge of the parties’ political platforms. This then she changes her ideal point to the platform of the assumption could help explain why political knowledge pre- n; n p j ; j p party she supports (i.e., (x1 x2 ) (x1 x2), where j dicts the consistency of mass political preferences with party L, R is her party), while if k 1 1, she keeps her initial elites (Zaller 1992). This is also in line with Layman and Car- n; n p o; o ideal point (i.e., (x 1 x 2 ) (x 1 x 2)). sey (2002), who show that only high-information voters have polarized along with the parties in recent decades. ℓ o Line (x1) is negatively sloped in (x1, x2)-space and passes through the point (1/2, 1/2). A voter with an initial ideal point SOCIALIZATION AND EMPATHY below this line supports the left party, while a voter with an When two individuals socialize, it is possible that their pref- initial ideal point above the line supports the right party. The erences converge to each other’s even when they do not ex- line ℓ gets steeper as g, the importance of the second issue, change information or evidence and even on issues on which falls. This has the natural implication that voters who are there may be no evidence to exchange (such as religion). One right wing on the first issue but left wing on the second issue channel for this is empathy. By empathizing with another in- shift away from the right party and move to the left party as dividual—that is, by internalizing the other person’s pref- the second issue becomes more important. If k ! 1, they sort erences and action choices—an individual may experience into being right partisans rather than left partisans. If voter some level of cognitive dissonance arising from the fact that ideal points are distributed across the policy space and g and k ! 1 are shared across individuals, then ℓ is the “cutting line” that partitions the electorate into left and right partisans. 5. In this sense, the above example speaks to ideological scaling efforts Preferences become one-dimensional as a result of parti- documenting that policy preferences of political elites in the United States sanship. can be scaled onto no more than two dimensions and usually just one (Poole and Rosenthal 1991). fi Discussion 6. The ndings are also consistent with the literature showing persistence in the turnout decision (e.g., Bølstad, Dinas, and Riera 2013; The above example shows that while the two parties adopt Meredith 2009; Mullainathan and Washington 2009). their own preferred positions, voters whose initial prefer- 7. If a voter does not know these positions (or does not know any one ences can lie anywhere in the two-dimensional policy space of the components of a party’s position), then it is natural to assume that the voter does not experience any cognitive dissonance rather than to may change their ideal point to match the positions taken by assume that voters have beliefs about the positions of parties and expe- the party they support. Partisanship, in this example, emerges rience the “expected level of cognitive dissonance” from being out of step naturally from voters wanting to minimize the psychological with respect to these beliefs.

Model Proposition 2. In the unique Nash equilibrium, each p n Two individuals, i p 1, 2, have preferences on a one- individual i 1, 2 chooses (ai, xi ) given by R dimensional issue space represented by the real line . Each p n p o 1 2 o ; ai x aix (1 ai)x2 where ai o i i i individual i has an initial ideal point xi , which is common e2 k 1 k2 k knowledge to both individuals. Each individual simultaneously p i i i i : 1 1 n e2iki eik2i k2iki decides what her new ideal point xi will be and which ideal p ; position ai to express. Let a (a1 a2) denote the pair of ac- To summarize, in equilibrium, individual i expresses a tions chosen. In this application, we assume that action dis- n position ai equal to her new ideal position xi , and her new sonance and preference change dissonance are given by ideal position is a convex combination of her starting position o o ; n ≔ n 2 2 1 n 2 2 x and the starting position of the other individual x 2 . The dA;i (a x ) (x ai) ei(x a2i) i i i i i ð3Þ n o n o 2 weight ai that individual i puts on her own starting position ; ; ≔ 2 ; dP i(xi xi ) ki (xi xi ) o x i is decreasing in the degree of empathy ei that she feels to- 2 ﬁ respectively, where i is the usual notation for the other in- ward the other individual and increasing in the dif culty ki in dividual and ei and ki are positive parameters. As in the prev- changing her own position. The weight ai is increasing in the 2 ious example, both individuals have preferences represented degree of empathy e2i that the other individual i feels to- ﬁ 2 by the negative of total dissonance. We write the utility of voter ward i and decreasing in the dif culty k2i that i experiences i as in changing his position. In the relationship, if one individual

; n o p 2 ; n; o ≔ 2 ; n 2 n; o does not feel very much empathy toward the other, or if he ui(a x jx ) di(a x x ) dA;i(a x ) dP;i(x x ) i i i i i i i finds it difficult to change his views, then the other individual n and posit that i chooses (ai, xi ) to maximize this utility. Thus, ends up compromising her position more. each individual desires to express a position ai that matches n her new ideal position xi . Each individual, however, also ex- Socialization as a dynamic adjustment process n periences some discomfort when her new ideal position xi is If equilibrium is instantly achieved, then the model above different from the ideal position expressed by the other in- does not fully capture the process of socialization, which takes 1 dividual a2i. This discomfort is weighted by ei 0, which we time. In this section, we provide a standard dynamic adjust- interpret as the level of empathy that individual i has toward ment (i.e., tâtonnement) argument for how the players might 2 ’ i. Finally, there is a cost to changing one s ideal position arrive at equilibrium through socialization.8 o n from x i to xi . This cost is weighted by the salience of pref- In our setup, players take turns reacting to changes in erence change dissonance, ki. each other’s positions by iteratively choosing best responses fi The rst-order conditions for the maximization of before they settle on their final position. Player 1 first reacts ; n o n ui(a xi jx i ) with respect to ai and xi imply that to player 2’s initial position; player 2 then reacts to player 1’s p n new position; player 1 then reacts to player 2’s new position, ai xi and so on. The “reaction functions” (i.e., best response func- n ei ki o ð4Þ x p a2 1 x : i 1 i 1 i tions) for each player are ei ki ei ki ’ n This means that individual i s new preference parameter xi is o a weighted average of the old preference parameter xi and the ’ 8. An alternative approach, which we do not pursue here, would be to other individual s expressed preference a2i, where the weights have the players interact repeatedly, taking the pair of new ideal points are determined by the level of empathy ei and the salience of n; n (x1 x2 ) from the last period interaction as the current period state variables, preference change dissonance ki. When empathy is high, the and then characterize the limit of the sequence of ideal points under a new preference parameter is closer to the other individual’s Markov perfect equilibrium. However, our dynamic adjustment approach can be interpreted as a dynamic game in which myopic players have the expressed preference, and when the cost of preference change objective of best responding to the other player’s last period announcement is high, the new preference parameter is instead closer to the o; o but in which dissonance with the old preference parameters (x1 x2)is old preference parameter. persistent.

e k r (xn ) p i xn 1 i xo; i p 1; 2: other individual. This follows from the fact that ai in prop- i 2i 1 2i 1 i ð5Þ ei ki ei ki osition 2 lies between 0 and 1. fi The sequence of positions that the players take when they In addition, gure 1 shows that the convergence of xi[t]to take turns reacting to each other is then given by the fol- the equilibrium position need not be monotonic in the be- lowing initial conditions and recursive relationships: ginning. Early in the socialization process, player 1 may en- tertain a very different perspective than his own as he makes x ½0 p xo 1 1 an effort to put himself in player 2’s shoes. As player 2 reveals p o x2½0 x2 that she is doing the same, player 1 may decide to take a step e1 k1 ð6Þ x ½t p x ½t 2 1 1 xo; t 1 0 back. It is then player 2 who takes successive steps closer to 1 e 1 k 2 e 1 k 1 ’ 1 e 1 k 1 1 player 1 s position, and player 1 who takes small steps back, x ½t p 2 x ½t 1 i xo; t 1 0; fi 2 1 1 1 2 as the players gure out where they each will stand. In this e2 k2 e2 k2 process, player 1 makes too large a compromise in the be- ’ where xi[t] denotes player i s position after he has reacted t ginning and spends the rest of the socialization process tak- times. The following result states that for all starting values of ing small steps back. Player 2, however, always moves in the o o x and x the sequence of positions for each player converges 9 1 2 direction of her final position. Such a process may be quite to the equilibrium positions given in proposition 2 above. natural for two empathetic individuals working together to understand each other’s perspectives and develop their own Proposition 3. For all xo and xo, the sequences of 1 2 new positions. {x1[t]}t and {x2[t]}t converge to the equilibrium values n n of x1 and x2 given in proposition 2 above. Discussion This application provides theoretical support to two related Figure 1 illustrates the socialization process described literatures. The first documents the stability of partisanship above. It shows how the dynamic adjustment process leads to over time along with its ability to change as a result of major the players eventually reaching the equilibrium values (xn, xn) 1 2 life events, including marriage and divorce (Green, Palm- from the starting point (xo, xo). The two oblique lines are the 1 2 quist, and Schickler 2002) or emigration (Brown 1981). For reaction functions, or best responses. The vertical and hori- example, Green et al. (2002) observe that partisanship oper- zontal lines with arrows depict the socialization path, which ates similarly to religious affiliation in the sense that close, starts from the original positions (xo, xo). What the figure 1 2 empathetic relationships have the potential to change it. They ’ fi does not reveal is that each individual s nal position lies be- write that an “avenue for shifting religious affiliation is a tween his original position and the original position of the changing small-group environment, in particular, marriage to a person of another faith. In such instances, people . . . may alter their perception of the new religion as they come to see it through their spouse’s eyes. Parallel observations may be made about partisan identities, which also change as regional and occupational mobility put adults into contact with new friends and social groups” (6). Our analysis provides a theoretical foundation for how exactly these sorts of major life events could lead to the transformation of political preferences over time. Second, the model sheds light on how empathy can lead to changes in specific policy positions. Several studies have documented that close relationships have the capacity to affect decision making on certain issues. For example, lever- aging a natural experiment, Washington (2008) finds that male members of Congress who have daughters tend to vote

9. If we had reversed the order of moves—assuming that player 2 reacts ﬁrst—then, the reverse would hold: player 2 would initially take too large a step, and then spend the rest of the interaction taking small steps Figure 1. Socialization as a dynamic adjustment process back, while player 1 would consistently move toward his ﬁnal position.

This content downloaded from 128.103.193.182 on September 28, 2018 07:15:59 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 406 / Explaining Preferences from Behavior Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen in more liberal directions on issues having a gender compo- strates how ethnic animosities can be passed down across gen- nent. This ﬁnding was replicated in the judicial context by erations and how they may coevolve with violence, tracking Glynn and Sen (2015). The application also speaks to a broader the amount of violence over time. We explain how ethnic hos- literature on political persuasion, which examines campaign tility may in fact persist even after violence disappears, a result tactics in the United States and documents that sending that has many applications that we discuss below.12 demographically similar campaign workers is more effective than sending dissimilar workers, perhaps because similarity Model activates empathy (Enos and Hersh 2015; Leighley 2001; Consider a dynasty r of one-period-lived individuals. The Shaw, de la Garza, and Lee 2000). individual that is alive in each period t p 0, 1, 2 . . . decides ∈ ; One question that our application leaves unanswered is: whether to engage in an aggressive action at(r) f0 1g What determines the level of empathy to begin with? That against a member of another group, which we will refer to “ ” p is, what determines the values of the empathy parameters ei as the target group (at (r) 1 means that the individual (i p 1, 2)? Whether empathy leads to substantial conver- from dynasty r alive in period t chooses the aggressive action; p gence in preferences between the two individuals depends on at (r) 0 means that he does not). The individual alive in o ∈ ; how large these parameters are. If they are small, then so- period t starts the period with attitude xt (r) ½0 1 toward o cialization will not lead to much convergence in preferences. members of the target group, where high values of xt (r) indi- And, if they are negative—meaning that the individuals feel cate more hostile attitudes. At the end of the period, the indi- — n ∈ ; antipathy rather than empathy toward one another then vidual forms a new attitudext (r) ½0 1 and then passes down o p n socialization will lead to further preference divergence. Since this attitude to the next generation so that xt11(r) xt (r). there is considerable variation in the success of interventions The individual from dynasty r alive in period t has action and designed to increase empathy (e.g., Gubler 2013), it would be preference change dissonances given by, respectively, valuable to empirically investigate the determinants of the d (a (r); xn(r)) p jxn(r) 2 a (r)j model’s parameters.10 A t t t t 1 ð7Þ n ; o p n 2 o 2; dP(xt (r) xt (r)) ½xt (r) xt (r) ATTITUDES SHAPED BY VIOLENCE 2k 1 The conventional view is that violence is the outcome of prej- where k 0 is a parameter that determines the salience of udice: individuals engage in violence against those they hate. preference change dissonance. The generation t individual Holmes, in his introduction to Behemoth, however, attributes chooses at(r) according to a behavior rule that we specify n to Hobbes another equally plausible view: “In his abridged below and chooses xt (r) to minimize total dissonance (i.e., ‘translation’ of [Aristotle’s] Rhetoric, Hobbes departed from the sum of action and preference change dissonances) given Aristotle’s original by adding intriguingly that individuals the choice of at(r). That is, after the individual at r chooses n ∈ ; have a tendency ‘to hate’ anyone ‘whom they have hurt,’ at(r) in period t, she chooses xt (r) ½0 1 to minimize simply because they have hurt him” (Holmes 1990, 32). ; n 1 n ; o : dA(at (r) xt (r)) dP(xt (r) xt (r)) In this section, we develop an application in which ethnic or racial animosity increases when an individual commits The following lemma characterizes intergenerational attitude an act of violence toward someone from a different ethnic change as a function of actions and inherited attitudes. or racial group and decreases when the individual does not Lemma 1. commit any such act of violence.11 The application supports Given the choice of at(r)andtheinherited attitude xo(r), an individual who chooses xn(r) to min- Hobbes’s conjecture and provides a formal theoretical basis t t for the constructivist viewpoint that ethnic and racial divisions imize total dissonance chooses can be socially or individually constructed, possibly from acts o 1 k; p n p minfxt (r) 1g if at (r) 1 xt (r) ; o 2 p : ð8Þ of violence (Fearon and Laitin 2000). The model also demon- maxf0 xt (r) kg if at(r) 0

10. This would enable us to address other related questions, including 12. We do not address the question of how exposure to violence af- the role of social networks in changing policy preferences and the impact fects the preferences or attitudes of the target group. Past work on this, of close contact between people of different ethnic groups (including both e.g., Shayo and Zussman (2011) and Voors et al. (2012), has emphasized “contact theory” and the “racial threat” hypothesis). the importance of threat perception and trade-offs in social-identity 11. Although we use the term “violence” here, this framework can choice to explain the relationship between violence and attitudes for the apply to instances involving any kind of negative action that requires target group. Whether cognitive dissonance theory can provide alternative costly effort but has diffuse beneﬁts, including (but not limited to) verbal explanations for the attitude development of the target group remains an exchanges, the policing of racial roles, etc. open and interesting question.

0 p ∅ p 1 p ∅ This implies that an individual always pays a cost of at most and if At (r) , then at11(r) 1, while if At (r) , then p k/2 for changing his attitude, which he pays when the atti- at11(r) 0. The latter part of this assumption says that if tude rises or falls by the maximum optimal change of k.We every member of group A in r’s local community took the also assume that the parameter k is small so that attitudes same action in the previous period, then r takes that action in move incrementally within the interval [0, 1]. the current period. This is an “optimistic” imitation rule in the sense that r aspires to the highest material payoff received by his parents’ neighbors and then imitates the individual Violence decisions who received the highest material payoff. We now study violence decisions under the assumption that agents are connected to each other in a network and choose the action on the basis of imitation of others in their network. The dynamic evolution of attitudes and violence Each dynasty r is identified with a real number; thus, r ∈ Since the path of violence is generated by recursive imitation, (2∞; 1∞). We refer to the interval B(r) p ½r 2 (m=2); r 1 characterizing this path requires making assumptions about (m=2) as the “local community” of dynasty r. The assumption the initial conditions. If no individual engages in violence in that the local community of a dynasty does not vary over the first period, then by our imitation rule no individual will generations is implicit and serves only to simplify the anal- ever engage in violence. So, we will assume that a concen- fi ysis. The model can be extended without much complication trated mass, l0, of individuals adopt violence in the rst pe- to the case in which communities change over time. riod, and we focus on how violence may spread or decline after ’ Let rt(r) denote the fraction of individuals in r slocal this point. Formally, our assumptions about the initial con- community that engage in violence against the target group. ditions are as follows: We assume then that the “material payoff” to an individual ≥ who lives at r is i) l0 m. p 2 ; ii) ut (r) wtrt (r) vat (r) ð9Þ ( ; ∈ 2 l0 ; l0 ≥ 1 ; o p (1 k)ifr where wt 0 is a time-varying parameter, and v 0 is the (a0(r) x0(r)) 2 2 material cost of violence. Since the gains from violence, (0; 0) otherwise: wt rt(r), are proportional to the total amount of violence pro- Given assumption ii, assumption i guarantees that there is at duced in r’s local community, our assumption is that vio- least one individual whose entire local community engages in lence can influence individual payoffs only socially. violence in the first period. Assumption ii states that the small The dynamic linkage across periods in our model arises community of individuals who adopt violence in the first pe- from intergenerational socialization: each individual observes riod is centered at 0 and that these individuals have the same the material payoffs of the members of his parents’ generation attitudes that they would have chosen if their parents’ attitudes that lived in his local community and then decides whether were 0 (although, in fact, they are the first generation of in- to engage in violence by “imitating” the individual from the dividuals in the model). previous generation who received the highest material payoff. Our main result characterizes the recursive paths of vio- More formally, define the sets of members of the tth gener- lence and attitudes under these assumptions about the initial ation individual in dynasty r’s local community that respec- conditions. To state the result, we divide the set of periods into tively do not engage, and engage, in violence to be p : ! = p : 1 = two subsets, T 0 ft v wt 2g and T1 ft v wt 2g.In 0 p ~ ∈ : p ; At (r) fr B(r) at (r) 0g what follows we identify the degenerate interval [0, 0] with 1 p ~ ∈ : p : ð10Þ At (r) fr B(r) at (r) 1g the empty set ∅. The following proposition characterizes the coevolution of violence and attitudes in the population over The individual who lives at r in period t 1 1 engages in vi- time. olence if and only if the highest material payoff among individuals in his local community that commit violence in Proposition 4. ≥ period t is larger than the highest material payoff among in- Given lt 0 and the value of wt in dividuals who choose not to commit violence. In other words, period t, let 0 1 if At (r) and At (r) are both nonempty, then 8 < 2v 1 v 1 0 1 2 ∈ ≥ 1 ! lt m 1 if t T 0 and lt m 0ifsup ut (At (r)) sup ut (At (r)) l 1 p a 1 (r) p ð11Þ t 1 : wt 2 wt t 1 1 ≥ 0 ; ; 2 : 1ifsup ut (At (r)) sup ut (At (r)) maxf0 lt mg otherwise

Then, the paths of violence and attitudes are recur- sively given by ; n (at11(r) x 1 (r)) 8 t 1 > lt11 lt11 >(1; minfxn(r) 1 k; 1g) for all r ∈ 2 ; < t 2 2 p > > lt11 lt11 :(0; maxfxn(r) 2 k; 0g) for all r ∉ 2 ; : t 2 2

Proposition 4 implies that the mass of individuals who adopt ∈ violence grows in any period t T0, provided that a large enough interval of individuals adopted violence in the previous period. The proposition also implies that as individ- Figure 2. Evolution of aggregate violence (i.e., the integral of at(r)over uals adopt violence in successive periods, their attitudes to- individuals r; dashed dark gray line) and aggregate attitudes (i.e., the integral of xn(r) over individuals r; solid gray line). ward the target group become increasing hostile. t It is also worth noting that the assumption that agents imitate members of their local community (of the previous vides a plausible theoretical framework with which to inte- generation), rather than optimally decide whether to engage grate instrumentalist (strategic) and constructivist approaches in violence, is important for the result that violence can in the study of ethnicity and violence.13 In addition, our find- fi spread in the population. Because violence produces bene ts ings engage the broader possibility that individuals have a only socially, whereas its costs are private, optimizing agents significant role to play in the development or propagation of would succumb to the free-rider problem and choose not to ethnic or racial prejudice. As Fearon and Laitin (2000, 856) contribute to violence. Our assumption that a small concen- write, individual “actions may . . . result in the construction fi trated mass l0 of individuals choose violence in the rst pe- of new or altered identities, which themselves change cul- riod is also important for this result. tural boundaries.” Moving from violence to other kinds of We conclude with an example that will inform our dis- hostile actions (e.g., segregation, discrimination) accommo- fi cussion of the related empirical ndings below. Suppose that dates other theories of how cognitive dissonance may con- ∈ H; L L= ! ! H = ∈ wt fw w g for all t with w 2 v w 2, and t T0 if tribute to the propagation of racial/ethnic attitudes or their ≤ ＊＊ 1 and only if t t for some t 0. Then violence grows up to formation—including how perceptions of threat could lead period t* after which it declines. If the critical period t*is to racist attitudes. Finally, the mechanism posited by our fi = H fi suf ciently large (and 2v w is suf ciently small), then a framework can also operate alongside other mechanisms, in- large mass of individuals continue to develop increasingly cluding recurring economic incentives or exogenous shocks. hostile attitudes even after violence begins to decline. Con- Furthermore, the results provide a theoretical foundation — sequently, average hostility that is, the population average for recent empirical studies documenting the historical per- — 1 ＊ of at(r) may peak in a period t t , after which it begins sistence of ethnic or racial prejudices that originate in vio- to decline. In particular, it will take longer for average lence. For example, Voigtländer and Voth (2012) document attitudes to decline all the way to 0 than it will for the mass of persistence in anti-Semitic attitudes in Germany. They show individuals adopting violence to go to 0. Figure 2 presents the that regions that had medieval anti-Jewish pogroms during fi results of a simulation. The gure shows that aggregate periods of the Black Death are also those places that had the hostility goes to 0 at some time t after the time t at which all most intense anti-Semitism in the 1920s and greater support violence disappears. for the Nazi Party. The link in their work is violence: violence against the Jews over 500 years ago led to a persistently anti- Discussion Semitic climate well into the twentieth century. Similarly, The example above says that individuals committing violence against members of another group will develop hostile attitudes toward their victims as a way of minimizing cog- 13. It also supports the many empirical studies that have found that nitive dissonance. These attitudes may persist longer than violence can be—and has historically been—used by elites as a mechanism of fostering in-group solidarity and furthering anti-outgroup attitudes the acts of violence that created them. (Brass 1997; Gagnon 1994). Although we do not directly model such elite The model contributes to our understanding of how strategies in this example, our first application might provide one possible group-based prejudices might originate and develop. It pro- link between elite and racial/ethnic attitudes among the public.

2 o 1 o Acharya, Blackwell, and Sen (2016) explore the legacy of then her utility is (x1 gx2). (It cannot be optimal for her American slavery, finding that those parts of the US South to adopt the left party’s position on one issue and maintain where slavery was highly prevalent are also those areas where her initial position on the other since doing so would result 2 o 2 o 2 o 2 o whites today are the most conservative and racially hostile. in a utility of either x1 kgx2 or kx1 gx2, so the payoff The reason, they posit, lies in postbellum racial violence, which is guaranteed to be lower than the payoff from keeping her was used to terrorize newly freed slaves, solidifying antiblack initial ideal point or changing her ideal point to the platform attitudes. of the left party, whichever is greater.) Keeping her initial ideal point is preferable if k 1 1, while adopting the left’s CONCLUDING REMARKS platform as the new ideal point is preferable if k ! 1. The sym- One of the main contributions of this article is to demon- metric argument holds for the case in which the voter sup- strate how ideas from social psychology can help expand the ports the right party. The voter then supports the left party if scope of formalization in political science. We developed a 2xo 2 gxo 1 2(1 2 xo) 2 g(1 2 xo); framework for how individuals adjust their political and 1 2 1 2 social preferences to minimize cognitive dissonance—the dis- o ! ℓ o ℓ o fi which rearranges to x2 (x1), where (x1)isde ned in the comfort that arises when choices come into conflict with pre- proposition. She supports the right party when the reverse existing preferences. With its roots in social psychology, this inequality holds. QED simple intuition explains why people often change their preferences to bring them into closer alignment with their actions. Proof of proposition 2 It therefore provides a conceptual basis for a model of prefer- Follows from solving the best response system of equations ence formation. defined by (4) for i p 1, 2. QED We conclude by noting that our approach is amenable to introducing other concepts from social psychology that are Proof of proposition 3 closely related to cognitive dissonance, such as confirmation Solving the system of recursive equations in (6) yields bias and motivated reasoning (Lodge and Taber 2013). Con- p t o 1 2 o fi xi½t (t1t2) x ½ti(1 t2i)x2 rmation biases are instances when individuals refuse to ab- 2 i sorb or engage with potentially conflicting information, choos- 1 2 (t t )t 1 (1 2 t )xo 1 2 i p 1; 2; i i 2 ing instead to update on the basis of information that conforms 1 t1t2 with preexisting attitudes. Motivated reasoning is the ten- p = 1 ∈ ; p ; dency for people to explicitly view new evidence as entirely where ti ei (ei ki) (0 1), i 1 2. This implies that consistent with their preexisting views (Druckman and Bol- o o t (1 2 t2 )x 1 (1 2 t )x lim x ½t p i i 2i i i ; i p 1; 2: sen 2011; Taber and Lodge 2006). Both of these concepts are, →∞ i 2 t 1 t1t2 at their core, instances when individuals seek to avoid cogni- p fi tivedissonance.Withconfirmationbias,cognitivedissonance Substituting in ti, i 1, 2, and simplifying, we nd that this n is minimized by avoiding potentially challenging informa- limit equals the equilibrium value of xi given in proposition 2, tion that could create mental discomfort; with motivated rea- for each i p 1, 2. QED soning, objective information is actively ignored also to reduce such discomfort. Both can be considered special cases of Proof of lemma 1 p 2 n 1 the broader framework that we suggest here, meaning that our If at (r) 1, then total dissonance is 1 xt (r) = n 2 o 2 n ∈ ; approach can be used to formalize these increasingly impor- (1 2k)½xt (r) xt (r) ,sothevalueofxt (r) ½0 1 that min- o 1 ; p tant concepts and explore their consequences. imizes this is minfxt (r) k 1g.Ifat(r) 0, then total n 1 = n 2 o 2 dissonance is xt (r) (1 2k)½xt (r) xt (r) , so the value of n ∈ ; o 2 ; APPENDIX A xt (r) ½0 1 that minimizes this is maxfxt (r) k 0g. QED Proof of proposition 1 The voter’s optimization problem is piecewise linear, so the Proof of proposition 4 solution lies at a corner: the voter either keeps her initial ideal The proof is by induction. Since the set of individuals that fi 2 = position on an issue or adopts the position of the party she engage in violence in the rst period is an interval [ l0 2, = supports. Suppose the voter supports the left party. If the l0 2], the proposition can be proven by showing that if the voter adopts the left party’s platform as her ideal point, that set of individuals that engage in violence in period t is an n; n p ; ’ 2 o 1 o 2 = = is, (x1 x2 ) (0 0), then the voter s utility is k(x1 gx2). If interval [ lt 2, lt 2], then the set that engages in violence in n n o o ; p ; 1 2 1 = 1 = 1 she keeps her initial ideal point, that is, (x1 x2 ) (x1 x2), period t 1is[ lt 1 2, lt 1 2], where lt 1 is given in the

= ! = ; 2 Figure A1. If (wt 2) wt minf(lt m) 1g v, then the mass of individuals choosing violence grows from lt to lt11, as depicted. But if the reverse of this ; 2 inequality holds, then this mass of individuals declines from lt to maxf0 lt mg.

n ∈ 1 ≥ 0 statement of the proposition. The path of attitudes xt (r) So if t T 0, then sup ut (At (r)) sup ut(At (r)) if and only if ≤ = 1 = 2 = described in the proposition is then an immediate implica- r (lt 2) (m 2)½1 (2v wt ), as before, and lt11 is again fi = tion of lemma 1. Let us assume that in period t, the set of in- de ned so that this threshold on r equals lt11 2. If, however, 2 = = ∈ 1 ! 0 ∈ dividuals that choose violence is [ lt 2, lt 2]. t T1, then sup ut (At (r)) sup ut (At (r)) for all r R,so ≥ p 2 We focus on values of r 0, since the analysis for values of lt11 lt m. QED r ! 0 will be symmetric: the individual at 2r makes the same choices as the individual at r. Note that individuals at r 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS = 1 = (lt 2) (m 2) do not choose violence since nobody in their Some of the results from our previous working paper titled ≥ local community commits violence, while if lt m, individ- “Attitudes Shaped by Violence” have been incorporated into ∈ ; = 2 = uals r ½0 (lt 2) (m 2)) all commit violence since every- this article. We thank Ryan Enos, Jeffry Frieden, Alice Hsiaw, one in their local community does. Therefore, all that is re- Josh Kertzer, David Laitin, Ken Shepsle, Paul Sniderman, quired is to characterize the violence decisions of individuals and Dustin Tingley for helpful feedback. Ruxi Zhang pro- ∈ ; = 2 = ; = 1 = ≕ r ½maxf0 (lt 2) (m 2)g (lt 2) (m 2) R. So in what vided outstanding research assistance. follows, we will assume that r lies in this interval. If l ! m=2, then sup u (A1(r)) ≤ (w l =m) 2 v and sup t t t t t REFERENCES u (A0(r)) p w l =m for all r ∈ R. Therefore, all individuals t t t t Acharya, Avidit, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen. 2016. “The Political choose nonviolence. Legacy of American Slavery.” Journal of Politics 78 (3): 621–41. = ≤ ! 1 ≤ = 2 “ If m 2 lt m, then sup ut (At (r)) (wt lt m) v, but Akerlof, George A., and William T. Dickens. 1982. The Economic Con- 0 p = ∈ sequences of Cognitive Dissonance.” American Economic Review 72 now sup ut (At (r)) wt 2 for all r R. Now there are two fi ! = 1 = (3): 307–19. cases to consider. The rst is lt m½(1 2) (v wt ). In this “ = 2 ! = Bem, Daryl J. 1967. Self-Perception: An Alternative Interpretation of Cog- case, (wt lt m) v wt 2, so all individuals again choose nitive Dissonance Phenomena.” Psychological Review 74 (3): 183–200. ≥ = 1 = nonviolence. The second case is lt m½(1 2) (v wt ), Benabou, Roland. 2008. “Ideology.” Journal of the European Economic ∈ ! Association 6(2–3): 321–52. which requires t T0 by the hypothesis that lt m. Here, “ A1 l =m 2 ≤ m= 1 ½ m= 2 Benabou, Roland, and Jean Tirole. 2003. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Moti- sup ut( t (r)) equals (wt t ) v for r ( 2) ( 2) ” – = = 2 vation. Review of Economic Studies 70 (3): 489 520. (lt 2) and is linearly decreasing from (wt lt m) v to Benabou, Roland, and Jean Tirole. 2006. “Belief in a Just World and Re- = 2 = 1 = 2 = = 1 (wt 2) v on the interval [(m 2) ½(m 2) (lt 2),(m 2) distributive Politics.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 (2): 699–746. = fi 1 ≥ Bølstad, Jørgen, Elias Dinas, and Pedro Riera. 2013. “Tactical Voting and (lt 2)], as shown in gure A1. Therefore, sup ut(At (r)) 0 Party Preferences: A Test of Cognitive Dissonance Theory.” Political sup ut(At (r)) if and only if Behavior 35 (3): 429–52. Brass, Paul R. 1997. Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Represen- ≤ lt 1 m 2 2v : r 1 tation of Collective Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2 2 wt Brehm, Jack W. 1956. “Postdecision Changes in the Desirability of Al- fi = ” – Then lt11 is de ned so that this threshold on r equals lt11 2. ternatives. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 52 (3): 384 89. ≥ 1 Brown, Thad A. 1981. “On Contextual Change and Partisan Attributes.” Finally, suppose that lt m. In this case, sup ut(At (r)) British Journal of Political Science 11 (4): 427–47. equals w 2 v for all r ≤ l =2 and is linearly decreasing from t t Chen, M. Keith, and Jane L. Risen. 2010. “How Choice Affects and Reflects 2 = 2 = = 1 = wt v to (wt 2) v on the interval [lt 2, (lt 2) (m 2)] Preferences: Revisiting the Free-Choice Paradigm.” Journal of Per- fi 0 p = ∈ – (again see g. A1). But, sup ut (At (r)) wt 2 for all r R. sonality and Social Psychology 99 (4): 573 94.

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