IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/apandp/v109y2019p567-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emotional Tagging and Belief Formation: The Long-Lasting Effects of Experiencing Communism

Author

Listed:
  • Christine Laudenbach
  • Ulrike Malmendier
  • Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi

Abstract

Growing evidence in macrofinance suggests long-lasting effects of personally experienced outcomes on beliefs. To understand the underlying mechanism we turn to the neurological foundations of memory formation. We propose that emotional tagging plays a crucial role in assigning weights in the belief formation process. We use exposure to communism as well as variation in its emotional tagging to predict long-run beliefs. We show that living under communism has long-term effects on beliefs about its benefits. In addition, positive and negative emotional tags strongly affect the (pro- or anti-communist) direction of beliefs, providing anchors to memory that seem hard to reverse.

Suggested Citation

  • Christine Laudenbach & Ulrike Malmendier & Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi, 2019. "Emotional Tagging and Belief Formation: The Long-Lasting Effects of Experiencing Communism," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 567-571, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:109:y:2019:p:567-71
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20191051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20191051
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20191051.data
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20191051.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nghiem, Giang, 2020. "Depressed Demand," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224531, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Cotofan, Maria & Dur, Robert & Meier, Stephen, 2021. "Does growing up in a recession increase compassion? The case of attitudes towards immigration," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114427, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Ye, Xiaoyang & Zhai, Muxin & Feng, Li & Xie, A’na & Wang, Weimin & Wu, Hongbin, 2022. "Still want to be a doctor? Medical student dropout in the era of COVID-19," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 122-139.
    4. Christine Laudenbach & Ulrike Malmendier & Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi, 2020. "The Long-lasting Effects of Living under Communism on Attitudes towards Financial Markets," NBER Working Papers 26818, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Maria Cotofan & Lea Cassar & Robert Dur & Stephan Meier, 2023. "Macroeconomic Conditions When Young Shape Job Preferences for Life," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 467-473, March.
    6. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel & Stephen Utkus, 2021. "Five Facts about Beliefs and Portfolios," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1481-1522, May.
    8. Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola & Haliassos, Michael, 2021. "Participation following sudden access," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 671-688.
    9. Daniel Homocianu & Octavian Dospinescu & Napoleon-Alexandru Sireteanu, 2022. "Exploring the Influences of Job Satisfaction for Europeans Aged 50 + from Ex-communist vs. Non-communist Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 235-279, January.
    10. Choi, Syngjoo & Kim, Byung-Yeon & Lee, Jungmin & Lee, Sokbae, 2020. "A tale of two Koreas: Property rights and fairness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 112-130.
    11. William Pyle, 2021. "Russia’s “impressionable years”: life experience during the exit from communism and Putin-era beliefs," Post-Soviet Affairs, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 1-25, January.
    12. Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Can perceived returns explain enrollment gaps in postgraduate education?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Malmendier, Ulrike & Pouzo, Demian & Vanasco, Victoria, 2020. "Investor experiences and financial market dynamics," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(3), pages 597-622.
    14. Andrieş, Alin Marius & Plopeanu, Aurelian-Petruş & Sprincean, Nicu, 2023. "Institutional determinants of households’ financial investment behaviour across European countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 300-325.
    15. Trond Døskeland & Jens Soerlie Kvaerner, 2022. "Cancer and Portfolio Choice: Evidence from Norwegian Register Data [The age of reason: financial decisions over the life cycle and implications for regulation]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(2), pages 407-442.
    16. Malmendier, Ulrike & Nagel, Stefan & Yan, Zhen, 2021. "The making of hawks and doves," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 19-42.
    17. Francesco Bogliacino & Cristiano Codagnone & Frans Folkvord & Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, 2023. "The impact of labour market shocks on mental health: evidence from the Covid-19 first wave," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 40(3), pages 899-930, October.
    18. Josh Matti & Yang Zhou, 2022. "United we feel stronger? On the Olympics and political ideology," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 271-300, December.
    19. Choi, Syngjoo & Hahn, Kyu Sup & Kim, Byung-Yeon & Lee, Eungik & Lee, Jungmin & Lee, Sokbae, 2024. "North Korean refugees’ implicit bias against South Korea predicts market earnings," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    20. Uğur, Zeynep B. & Doğanay, Salih, 2024. "Risk and time preferences following war evidence from Syrian children," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    21. Friehe, Tim & Pannenberg, Markus, 2019. "Overconfidence over the lifespan: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    22. Massenot, Baptiste & Nghiem, Giang, 2019. "Depressed demand and supply," SAFE Working Paper Series 257, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • P20 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:109:y:2019:p:567-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.