The marketplace of rationalizations

Recent work in economics has rediscovered the importance of belief-based utility for understanding human behaviour. Belief ‘choice’ is subject to an important constraint, however: people can only bring themselves to believe things for which they can find rationalizations. When preferences for simila...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEconomics and philosophy Vol. 39; no. 1; pp. 99 - 123
Main Author Williams, Daniel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.03.2023
Subjects
Behavior
Cognition
Constraints
Decision making
Economics
Economists
Expected utility
False information
Markets
Microeconomics
Misinformation
Money
Rationalization
Social structure
rationalization
misinformation
belief-based utility
motivated reasoning
political epistemology
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ISSN0266-2671
1474-0028
DOI10.1017/S0266267121000389

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Summary:Recent work in economics has rediscovered the importance of belief-based utility for understanding human behaviour. Belief ‘choice’ is subject to an important constraint, however: people can only bring themselves to believe things for which they can find rationalizations. When preferences for similar beliefs are widespread, this constraint generates rationalization markets, social structures in which agents compete to produce rationalizations in exchange for money and social rewards. I explore the nature of such markets, I draw on political media to illustrate their characteristics and behaviour, and I highlight their implications for understanding motivated cognition and misinformation.
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ISSN:0266-2671
1474-0028
DOI:10.1017/S0266267121000389