IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jeehcn/v11y2001i4n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collective Belief Formation and the Politically Correct Concerning Information on Risk Behaviour

Author

Listed:
  • Lemennicier Bertrand

    (University of Paris II)

Abstract

The development of collective beliefs via informational and reputational cascades represents a way of shortcircuiting the difficulties related to the collective action of 'latent groups' (the problem of co-operation amongst a large group in the absence of coercion) to ensure the promotion of their particular interests. This essay focuses on the protection of consumers, whose quality of the life has never been so high, despite the prevalence of hazardous products.Rationally ignorant individuals form their opinions by conforming to those of others; this can take two forms, either by consolidating their personal judgement or their private information (informational cascades ), or by pure conformist behaviour. It may even be that such individuals rarely hesitate, if necessary, to admit beliefs that they do not actually hold in order to avoid being ostracised by others (reputational cascades). 'Latent groups' activists manipulate the process of formation of beliefs in order to bring about a predominant opinion on any given issue. Armed with the asset of the prevailing opinion, pressure can be exerted upon politicians in view of obtaining regulations and subsidies which would protect the 'latent group' of which they claim to be the representatives.This is the new face of collective action where the "politically correct" replaces physical violence or the strike. This way of shaping public opinion could have a beneficial outcome if it were not founded on erroneous information or led to a violation of individual rights due to regulation. However, this not the case. The very leitmotif of this method is, in fact, to bring about regulation which, by definition, violates private lives. In any case, it is dangerous because the manipulation of public opinion by these activists implies an intensive use of rhetoric, distorting the perception of risk, which in turn involves the circulation of misleading information in order to create a cascade modifying public opinion in favor of the proposed regulation, rather than informing the public on the potential risks and letting them insure freely against it if they judge to do so. But for the activist the end justifies the means. Thus, this manipulation of public opinion is a danger to the notion of modern democracy, already so sensitive to the pertaining to the majority.La formation des croyances par le biais des cascades d'information et de réputation est un moyen de courtcircuiter les difficultés liées à l'action collective des groupes latents (le problème de la coopération au sein d'un grand groupe en absence de coercition) pour assurer la promotion de leurs intérêts particuliers. Dans le cadre de cet essai est analysée la protection des consommateurs, dont la valeur de la vie est élevée, contre les produits à risque.Les individus rationnellement ignorants forment leurs opinions en se conformant aux croyances des autres, soit pour conforter leur jugement personnel ou leurs informations privées (cascades d'information), soit par conformisme pur. Il se peut même que les individus n'hésitent pas, s'il le faut, à afficher de fausses croyances, pour ne pas être frappés d'ostracisme par les autres (cascades de réputation).Les activistes des "groupes latents" manipulent le processus de formation des croyances pour faire émerger une opinion majoritaire sur un problème spécifique. Grâce à cette opinion majoritaire ils vont pouvoir faire pression auprès des hommes politiques pour obtenir une réglementation et des subventions à leur propre profit dans le but de protéger le "groupe latent" dont ils prétendent être les représentants. Ce sont les nouvelles formes d'action collective où le politiquement correct remplace la violence physique ou le piquet de grève.Cette façon de former l'opinion publique pourrait avoir des conséquences bénéfiques si elle n'était pas fondée sur des informations erronées et si elle n'aboutissait pas à une violation des droits individuels par la réglementation. Or ce n'est pas le cas. Elle est faite justement pour faire émerger une réglementation qui par définition viole la vie privée des gens. Par ailleurs, elle est dangereuse parce que la manipulation de l'opinion publique par ces activistes implique un usage intensif de figures de rhétorique, de biais dans la perception des risques, de diffusion de fausses informations dans le but d'enclencher une cascade qui va modifier l'opinion publique en faveur de la réglementation et non pas dans le but d'éclairer le public sur les véritables risques encourus, la fin justifiant les moyens.Cette manipulation des croyances est alors un danger pour la démocratie politique contemporaine déjà si sensible à l'opinion majoritaire.

Suggested Citation

  • Lemennicier Bertrand, 2001. "Collective Belief Formation and the Politically Correct Concerning Information on Risk Behaviour," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 11(4), pages 1-25, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jeehcn:v:11:y:2001:i:4:n:3
    DOI: 10.2202/1145-6396.1032
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1145-6396.1032
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1145-6396.1032?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timur Kuran, 1989. "Sparks and prairie fires: A theory of unanticipated political revolution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 41-74, April.
    2. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    3. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Louis Jaeck, 2006. "Consumer Behaviour and Environmental Preservation: The Contribution of Informational Cascades Theory," CAE Working Papers 43, Aix-Marseille Université, CERGAM, revised Dec 2006.
    2. Sandrine Vigel, 2007. "Flux informationnels et décisions stratégiques en situation de crise," CAE Working Papers 55, Aix-Marseille Université, CERGAM.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bell, Ann Maria, 2002. "Locally interdependent preferences in a general equilibrium environment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 309-333, March.
    2. Fernández-Duque, Mauricio, 2022. "The probability of pluralistic ignorance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    3. Apolte, Thomas & Müller, Julia, 2022. "The persistence of political myths and ideologies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Omer Tamuz & Ivo Welch, 2024. "Information Cascades and Social Learning," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1040-1093, September.
    5. Michael D Makowsky & Jared Rubin, 2013. "An Agent-Based Model of Centralized Institutions, Social Network Technology, and Revolution," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-10, November.
    6. Klick, Jonathan & Parisi, Francesco, 2008. "Social networks, self-denial, and median preferences: Conformity as an evolutionary strategy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1319-1327, August.
    7. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Rubin, Jared, 2014. "Centralized institutions and cascades," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 340-357.
    9. Nicolas Olsson-Yaouzis, 2012. "An evolutionary dynamic of revolutions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 497-515, June.
    10. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    11. Apolte, Thomas & Müller, Julia, 2019. "The dynamics of political myths and ideologies," CIW Discussion Papers 1/2019, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    12. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    13. Gu, Chen & Guo, Xu & Zhang, Chengping, 2022. "Analyst target price revisions and institutional herding," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. Ruomeng Cui & Dennis J. Zhang & Achal Bassamboo, 2019. "Learning from Inventory Availability Information: Evidence from Field Experiments on Amazon," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1216-1235, March.
    15. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.
    16. Cao, Melanie & Shi, Shouyong, 2006. "Signaling in the Internet craze of initial public offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 818-833, September.
    17. Wei He & Qian Wang, 2020. "The peer effect of corporate financial decisions around split share structure reform in China," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 474-493, July.
    18. Kraemer, Carlo & Noth, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2006. "Information aggregation with costly information and random ordering: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 423-432, March.
    19. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    20. Jacob K. Goeree & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Conformity in the lab," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 15-28, July.

    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:bpj:jeehcn:v:11:y:2001:i:4:n:3. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    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.