Group Affiliation Bias

I must confess that I am very susceptible to this. I had always dismissed arguments for open borders and pacifism till I heard them from the likes of Bryan Caplan and David Henderson; I wouldn’t listen to the arguments from the “liberal-left” but could accept them from libertarian-leaning writers.

Assuming difference of opinion causes one’s superiors to think less of you, and your colleagues to think less of you, this will be true in any group setting. I am more inclined to think of group affiliation bias to be “power driven” forced agreement. Both economics and status is set by the tone of the group leader or leaders. While common views can bring people together, power is a stronger variable.

That is my experience at any rate.

This really just represents the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The identity of the speaker, i.e., “affiliated” or “adversary” matters quite a bit – enough where it can actually open up minds to consider new evidence.

But fundamentally it’s coming back to values – why are people more receptive to new evidence from someone from “within” their affiliation than from “without?” Because information coming from “within” is perceived as potentially less likely to challenge deeply-held values – again, this is coming from a person who shares their values.

Kahan has some incredibly interesting work looking at perceptions of climate change evidence, specifically in terms of its framing context. The “individualist” and “hierarchical” orientations have been shown to be far more receptive to consider evidence of climate change if it’s presented in the context of expanding the use of nuclear power as opposed to increasing regulation.

In other words, when information is presented in a way which does not directly challenge the listener’s pre-conceived values, they are demonstrably more willing to consider evidence that contradicts their beliefs. It thus seems to me that the key issue here is finding ways to speak to the values of the audience, rather than trying to change those values directly.

This is in my mind, despite the many salient criticisms, one of the real points of value in projects like “Bleeding Heart Libertarians.” The project is pretty much trying to speak to the values of a more egalitarian-oriented audience – in other words, actually trying to make the case for libertarianism to those who do not necessarily hold to the exact same values as those who tend to come to those positions on their own.