In my experience it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to them and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
What predictions would you make about a universe where this is the case for most people, as compared to a universe where it is the case for only a small but vocal minority?
In a universe where the majority of people did not form clusters of beliefs centered around a political identity I would be extremely surprised to find so many people whose beliefs happened to match up perfectly[redacted] with one of only a few political stereotypes.
Perfectly was a poor choice of words. I would expect there to be much more variation in the combinations of beliefs that people hold than is observed. People who favor more aid to the poor are likely to also be pro choice. People who are pro war are likely to be pro life (these are true for US politics at least).
It is not obvious why these particular beliefs should be connected. I think you could make a convincing “just so” story for the sets of beliefs as they are and for their opposites.
edit: in a world where people thought through each of their beliefs independently I would expect the ratio of numBelieves(pro war, pro life) : numBelieves(pro war, pro choice) to be a lot closer to 1 than we observe.
It could be that the clustering you observe is caused by some other underlying clustering, e.g., class, personality type, a smaller set of fundamental “axiomatic” beliefs etc.
In my experience it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to them and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
Or, at a slightly different level, it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to those they wish to signal affiliation with and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
In my experience it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to them and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
What predictions would you make about a universe where this is the case for most people, as compared to a universe where it is the case for only a small but vocal minority?
In a universe where the majority of people did not form clusters of beliefs centered around a political identity I would be extremely surprised to find so many people whose beliefs happened to match up perfectly[redacted] with one of only a few political stereotypes.
What makes you believe their beliefs match up perfectly?
Perfectly was a poor choice of words. I would expect there to be much more variation in the combinations of beliefs that people hold than is observed. People who favor more aid to the poor are likely to also be pro choice. People who are pro war are likely to be pro life (these are true for US politics at least).
It is not obvious why these particular beliefs should be connected. I think you could make a convincing “just so” story for the sets of beliefs as they are and for their opposites.
edit: in a world where people thought through each of their beliefs independently I would expect the ratio of numBelieves(pro war, pro life) : numBelieves(pro war, pro choice) to be a lot closer to 1 than we observe.
It could be that the clustering you observe is caused by some other underlying clustering, e.g., class, personality type, a smaller set of fundamental “axiomatic” beliefs etc.
Or, at a slightly different level, it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to those they wish to signal affiliation with and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.