Mutual Admiration Clubs

26 January 2010 at 4:53 am Lasse 5 comments

| Lasse Lien |

Check out this cool paper by Wing Suen, titled “Mutual Admiration Clubs.”

This article proposes a theory of group formation based on the motive to seek informed opinion. Because an individual evaluates whether others are informed or not using his own priors, he identifies people with similar beliefs to be more informed than those with different beliefs. The result is an equilibrium in which like-minded individuals self-select into distinct groups, with members of each group believing that their own group is superior.

So is O&M a Mutual Admiration Club? I guess if we all agree that we are not, that is evidence that we are. So please disagree with each other on this issue.

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5 Comments Add your own

1. Peter Klein | 26 January 2010 at 10:16 am

I admire you so much for posting this.
2. Lasse | 26 January 2010 at 10:37 am

I admire you for admiring me
3. jck | 26 January 2010 at 5:37 pm

Cass Sunstein proposal of a Krugman pop up each time you read this blog is based in that non so original thesis.
Of course , this blog must pop up each time you read the sociological O& M
4. Peter Klein | 26 January 2010 at 5:58 pm

I will suggest such a “nudge” arrangement to our friends at orgtheory.net. And then to Krugman’s editor at the New York Times.
5. Dain Fitzgerald | 26 January 2010 at 10:16 pm

Sunstein might suggest you are alll epistemically crippled.