Last week for this column, our new colleague Dr. Drew Cagle wrote about the dangers to democracy of today’s increasing incivility in politics. This brought to mind a relevant article I wrote during the height of election campaigning in 2018. I have updated that article for a re-run below:
Hanging in my office is a map of the world oriented such that the south pole is at the top and the north pole is at the bottom. At first glance, the map seems to be hanging upside down. But upon closer inspection, it is clear the country names, ocean labels, etc., are all legible and right-side up. The map was made to be displayed this way. And when you think about it, isn’t it funny that we think of it as upside down? The earth is a ball floating in space. From space, its top and bottom are completely arbitrary and are only a matter of perspective.
My favorite part of the map is the Anaïs Nin quote beneath it: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” There is no correct or true orientation of a map of the earth, but the map on my wall seems upside down because of the observer’s orientation.
In the summer of 2018, I attended a conference where I heard a presentation describing the economic theory of opinion formation. The presenter was Dr. Steven Albert of Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California. His paper essentially describes with symbols and equations what Anaïs Nin described in the words quoted above.
Albert builds on a decades old theory of human capital. An individual’s human capital is all her accumulated knowledge, skills, and experiences. In the 1970’s economists Stigler and Becker devised a theory of human capital that explains behavior they called “addiction.” Their model showed that the more human capital one accumulates in a specific area, say, music education, the lower the cost of continuing to add capital in that same area. In other words, the more you learn about playing an instrument, the easier—and more desirable— it is for you to become even better at that instrument. And, as you become better and better at music, you become less and less likely to change your hobby or career from music to sports. You would have to start all over accumulating sports human capital, when you already have a sort of momentum working for you in music. You are “addicted” to music.
Now, apply this theory to human opinions. Your opinion on a given topic is a function of time and what Dr. Albert calls your opinion human capital. Opinion human capital is all the possible opinions you could hold given your accrued knowledge about the subject. The more knowledge you accrue supporting your opinion on a particular issue, the easier and more desirable it becomes for you to continue to hold that opinion, even if you are later faced with contrary information. You are addicted to your opinion, and theory predicts that at some point, you will begin to avoid contrary information altogether.
With election season fast approaching and party debates heating up, I find it interesting that economic theory supports what we know about many of our friends and perhaps even ourselves. We choose to believe news or ads that support the opinions we already hold, and we avoid or quickly dismiss contrary information, regardless of how founded it might be.
We have to be intentional to break this cycle, following Dr. Cagle’s advice from last week’s column: “proactively seek out a diverse range of opinions, be open-minded, and choose to find common ground.” Otherwise, our opinions become more and more polarized, and civility becomes harder to achieve.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anaïs Nin
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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.
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