Does voluntary disclosure of polarizing information make polarization deeper? An online experiment on Russo-Ukrainian War

Chapkovski, Philipp and Zakharov, Alexei (2023): Does voluntary disclosure of polarizing information make polarization deeper? An online experiment on Russo-Ukrainian War.

Abstract

Does the animosity toward a holder of an opposite political opinion or the behavior toward someone whose opinion on a divisive issue is unknown depends on whether that opinion was disclosed or withheld voluntarily? In order to study this question, we conducted a pre-registered study in Russia, measuring the pro-war dictators' behavior towards their partners with aligned or conflicting views on the war in Ukraine using give-or-take modification of Dictator Game. In the presence of a large polarisation gap (outgroup discrimination), we did not find that intentional vs. unintentional disclosure of the recipients' positions affected the transfers of the dictators; at the same time, dictators' beliefs about the share of war supporters among experiment participants and the donations made by other dictators were causally affected. Our study is the first one to consider this dimension of social interactions, and contributes to the quickly growing literature on political polarisation.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: disclosure; transparency; polarization; dictator game; war in Ukraine; Russia
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C92 - Laboratory, Group Behavior; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D64 - Altruism ; Philanthropy; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D74 - Conflict ; Conflict Resolution ; Alliances ; Revolutions; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D82 - Asymmetric and Private Information ; Mechanism Design; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D83 - Search ; Learning ; Information and Knowledge ; Communication ; Belief ; Unawareness

References

Akın, Zafer. 2019. “Dishonesty, social information, and sorting.” Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 80:199–210. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804318300466

Avtovzglyad. 2022. “Kak nakazhut voditelya... [How the driver...].” Avtovzglyad . Retrieved 2022-07-05. URL: https://www.avtovzglyad.ru/obshestvo/socium/2022-03-23-kak-nakazhut-voditelja-za-bukvu-z- na-avtomobile/

Boxell, Levi, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro. 2020. Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polar- ization. Working Paper 26669 National Bureau of Economic Research. Series: Working Paper Series. URL: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26669

Bran˜as-Garza, Pablo, Marisa Bucheli and Mar´ıa Paz Espinosa. 2020. “Altruism and information.” Journal of Economic Psychology 81:102332. Publisher: Elsevier.

Carlin, Ryan E. and Gregory J. Love. 2013. “The politics of interpersonal trust and reciprocity: An experimental approach.” Political Behavior 35(1):43–63. Publisher: Springer.

Carlin, Ryan E and Gregory J Love. 2018. “Political competition, partisanship and interpersonal trust in electoral democracies.” British Journal of Political Science 48(1):115–139.

Center, The Levada. 2022. “Konflikt s Ukrainoi [Conflict with Ukraine].” The Levada Center . Retrieved 2022-07-05. URL: https://www.levada.ru/2022/06/30/konflikt-s-ukrainoj-3/

Chambers, John R, Robert S Baron and Mary L Inman. 2006. “Misperceptions in intergroup conflict: Disagreeing about what we disagree about.” Psychological Science 17(1):38–45.

Chapkovski, Philipp. 2022a. “Information avoidance in a polarized society.” Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 101:101940. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804322001112

Chapkovski, Philipp. 2022b. “Interactive experiments in Toloka.”. Publisher: Rochester: SSRN.

Chapkovski, Philipp and Max Schaub. 2022. “Solid support or secret dissent? A list experi- ment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine.” Research & Politics 9(2):20531680221108328.

Chen, Daniel L., Martin Schonger and Chris Wickens. 2016. “oTree—An open-source platform for laboratory, online, and field experiments.” Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance 9:88–97. URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214635016000101

Dimant, Eugen. 2020. “Hate trumps love: The impact of political polarization on social preferences.” Available at SSRN .

Dohmen, Thomas, Armin Falk, David Huffman, Uwe Sunde, Ju¨rgen Schupp and Gert G. Wagner. 2011. “Individual risk attitudes: Measurement, determinants, and behavioral consequences.” Journal of the european economic association 9(3):522–550. Publisher: Oxford University Press.

Druckman, James N and Matthew S Levendusky. 2019. “What do we measure when we measure affective polarization?” Public Opinion Quarterly 83(1):114–122.

Druckman, James N, Samara Klar, Yanna Krupnikov, Matthew Levendusky and John Barry Ryan. 2022. “(Mis) estimating affective polarization.” The Journal of Politics 84(2):1106–1117.

Druckman, James, S. Klar, Y. Krupnikov, M. Levendusky and J. B. Ryan. 2019. “The illusion of affective polarization.” See https://www. ipr. northwestern. edu/documents/working-papers/2019/wp-19-25. pdf . Enders, Adam M and Miles T Armaly. 2019. “The differential effects of actual and perceived polariza- tion.” Political Behavior 41(3):815–839.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 1996. “Signals from below: Soviet letters of denunciation of the 1930s.” The Journal of Modern History 68(4):831–866. Publisher: The University of Chicago Press.

Frimer, Jeremy A, Linda J Skitka and Matt Motyl. 2017. “Liberals and conservatives are similarly motivated to avoid exposure to one another’s opinions.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 72:1–12.

Frye, Timothy. 2010. Building states and markets after communism: The perils of polarized democracy. Cambridge University Press.

Geddes, Barbara, Joseph George Wright, Joseph Wright and Erica Frantz. 2018. How dictatorships work: Power, personalization, and collapse. Cambridge University Press.

Gelpi, Christopher, Peter D Feaver and Jason Reifler. 2009. Paying the human costs of war. In Paying the Human Costs of War. Princeton University Press.

Gidron, Noam, James Adams and Will Horne. 2020. American affective polarization in comparative perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Howell, Jennifer L. and James A. Shepperd. 2016. “Establishing an information avoidance scale.” Psy- chological Assessment 28(12):1695. Publisher: American Psychological Association.

Iyengar, Shanto, Gaurav Sood and Yphtach Lelkes. 2012. “Affect, not ideologya social identity perspec- tive on polarization.” Public opinion quarterly 76(3):405–431.

Iyengar, Shanto, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra and Sean J Westwood. 2019. “The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States.” Annual Review of Political Science 22(1):129–146.

John, Leslie K., Kate Barasz and Michael I. Norton. 2016. “Hiding personal information reveals the worst.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(4):954–959. Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. URL: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1516868113

Le Forestier, Joel M., Elizabeth Page-Gould and Alison L. Chasteen. 2022. “Concealment stigma: The social costs of concealing.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 101:104340. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103122000592

Lees, Jeffrey and Mina Cikara. 2020. “Inaccurate group meta-perceptions drive negative out-group attributions in competitive contexts.” Nature Human Behaviour 4(3):279–286.

List, John A. 2007. “On the interpretation of giving in dictator games.” Journal of Political economy 115(3):482–493.

Media, Holod. 2022. “Poshla ty... [Go to...].” Holod Media . Retrieved 2022-07-05. URL: https://holod.media/2022/02/25/war-family/

Medialeaks. 2022. “Kak rossiyane donosat... [How Russians inform...].” Medialeaks . Retrieved 2022-07- 05. URL: https://medialeaks.ru/2303tat-str-donosi/

Meduza. 2022. “V Penze shkolniki... [Schoolchildren in Penza...].” Meduza . Retrieved 2022-07-05. URL: https://meduza.io/news/2022/04/01/v-penze-shkolniki-napisali-donos-na-uchitelnitsu- rasskazavshuyu-o-voyne-v-ukraine-na-pedagoga-zaveli-ugolovnoe-delo-po-statie-o-feykah

Murray, Ian, Anke Plagnol and Philip Corr. 2017. “‘When things go wrong and people are afraid’: An evaluation of group polarisation in the UK post Brexit.” Available at SSRN 3041846 .

Nagel, Thomas. 2004. Concealment and exposure: and other essays. Oxford University Press. Realii, Sever:. 2022. “Putin, poshel... [Putin, go to...].” Sever: Realii . Retrieved 2022-07-05. URL: https://www.severreal.org/a/putin-poshel-von-iz-ukrainy-kak-pensionerka-donesla-na- pensionerku/31828644.html

Roberts, Annabelle R., Emma E. Levine and Ovul Sezer. 2021. “Hiding success.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 120:1261–1286. Place: US Publisher: American Psychological Association.

Settle, Jaime E and Taylor N Carlson. 2019. “Opting out of political discussions.” Political Communi- cation 36(3):476–496.

Shirikov, Anton. 2021. “Fake news for all: misinformation and polarization in authoritarian regimes.” Available at SSRN 3944011 .

Silver, Ike and Alex Shaw. 2022. “When and why “staying out of it” backfires in moral and political disagreements.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 151:2542–2561. Place: US Publisher: American Psychological Association.

Yair, Omer. 2020. “A note on the affective polarization literature.” Available at SSRN 3771264 .