It seems to me that what Albratross is describing there is simply "conformism". There is a difference.
Conformism: I believe X because other people believe X.
Preference falsification: I privately believe X while publicly making it appear as if I believe Y.
Using the legalization of gay marriage as an example of "preference falsification" would imply that people were privately in favor of legalizing gay marriage but misrepresented their belief as not favoring it, and then, at some point, stopped misrepresenting their true belief (which supposedly explain the legalization). Is this really the dynamic that took place?
Conformism illustrates that our belief-formation mechanisms do not function exclusively to represent reality and that they are sensitive to the consequences of belief acquisition. The reality of conformism implies that some of those consequences are social ones. More here: https://triangulation.substack.com/p/how-beliefs-become-signals
As to Albratross' claim that the debate made it common knowledge that Biden was "naked" (i.e. mentally incompetent) which supposedly explains Democrats' change of hearts regarding Biden's candidacy, here's a different take: the debate and its aftermath made it clear to key players that with Biden around they could not control the conversation: everyone would talk all the time about Biden's gaffs. Even if he is elected once again, everybody would talk about it. He would be a laughing stock. So in that sense, Biden stepping aside was not about Democrats suddenly realizing that Biden's cognitive state was not up to the task of the second mandate--it is about realizing that they would not be able to control the conversation. By making Biden step aside, the Democrats are effectively eliminating the Schelling point around which the opposition and the critics can coordinate and mobilize. In a corrupt country, a government does not fire its corrupt minister necessarily because the prime minister is not corrupt and because the corruption scandal has been unearthed, but because as long as the minister is in that government, the media and the opposition have a lot of ammunition to attack them.
I know I'm a bit late to this, but I do think you are right about the distinction.
With preference falsification, you're in a situation where people believe X but say not-X, because everyone else says not-X and deviating has a cost. Timur Kuran talked about the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. You think Communism is bad, but you believe you are in the minority and so say Communism is good. But in reality, everyone thinks Communism is bad but says Communism is good. There's a coordination problem. Then there's a signal that, in fact, others might agree with you, so you express that Communism is bad, which intensifies that signal to others. The cascade rapidly changes social reality.
It would be like if you worked with a bunch of judgmental vegetarians and you love hamburgers. You might lie and tell people you hate hamburgers and order Tofu, which you prefer less, and signal that you're a judgmental vegetarian, too. But then you find out your boss has a Slim Jim in their purse, and everyone admits they only ordered Tofu because they thought everyone else was vegetarian. Everyone is better off now that they can order hamburgers without being judged.
But if you, and everyone, were indifferent between hamburger and tofu, no cascade would take place because there's no individual reward for 'defecting' and getting to eat hamburgers.
The collapse of Biden's support fit preference falsification because, privately, everyone thought Biden was too old but wouldn't express it publicly until a signal (the debate) changed how acceptable it was to express your private belief.
The gay marriage story is an information cascade, but not a preference falsification (again, as you noted, unless people's private beliefs contradicted their public statements). Preference falsification *includes* an information cascade, but that information cascade has to be driven by people expressing their true preferences. It's really hard to distinguish between the two looking only at revealed preferences, though.
Yes, your and Timur Kuran's examples seem to me as clear cases of what I associate with the notion of "preference falsification," unlike some of the cases used by Albatross and David (some of which are simply cases of conformism without any meaningful "falsification" going on).
"The collapse of Biden's support fit preference falsification because, privately, everyone thought Biden was too old but wouldn't express it publicly until a signal (the debate) changed how acceptable it was to express your private belief."
Privately believing that Biden is unfit to be POTUS while publicly making opposite claims would be a case of preference falsification, although do note that in David's model those people _believed_ that Biden was fit to be president:
"Now apply the same logic to beliefs about Biden. As long as the accepted orthodoxy among Democrats is that Biden is in fine shape, fully competent to be president for another four years, that any purported evidence of mental failure is Republican propaganda, it is in the interest of a Democrat to believe it too."
I think preferences falsification, or perhaps just belief falsification, is a bit applicable here, although I agree that many people simply believe whatever others say because it is what is normal and high status to believe. If the question is why people who should know better don't, then falsification seems to be appropriate. I don't think anyone with exposure to actual high functioning leaders or executives would look at Biden and say "Yea, he is totally on top of things." Now, if a person just never sees the videos of Biden wandering off, shaking hands with ghosts, asking if people who are dead are currently in the audience, it makes sense they are just not bothering to find out and saying what others say, but when people who pay attention see these videos and say "No, he seems fine to me," there is something more going on as their brain tries to rationalize (consciously or unconsciously) their current preferences and new information, and how to avoid the cognitive dissonance.
I think you hit the nail exactly on the head on the common knowledge point. So long as they could hide the more egregious Bidenisms they were fine, but once it was obvious the puppet wasn't running the show and was in no way able to do so even if he tried he had to go. It wasn't that no one in positions that matter didn't know he was well over the horizon of senility, it was that suddenly everyone else could blatantly see it, and it would all be downhill from there.
As far as the acceptance of gay marriage goes, I don't think the guy David Friedman quoted was saying people previously believed in it but were waiting for the in crowd to make it socially acceptable. I think he was saying that this was a case in which people held no really strong beliefs and were thus easily able to switch positions once it became the norm. But I also think that people of both sexes want to be sure no one thinks they're gay, so to be against gay marriage is a way of affirming that you're not gay yourself. I think there were a lot of gay people in the media and in politics who made a mighty effort to be understood as real people with ordinary lives. For the rest of us, it didn't cost much to go along once this case was made so clearly. The media may have led the charge because they either had many gay friends or because they are able to embrace many sides of an issue. Open-mindedness is necessary to their craft. So their tolerance became ours because they were so good at explaining it.
" I don't think the guy David Friedman quoted was saying people previously believed in it but were waiting for the in crowd to make it socially acceptable. I think he was saying that this was a case in which people held no really strong beliefs and were thus easily able to switch positions once it became the norm. "
Also, note the the potential problem with saying "people switched positions once it became the norm". What is the "norm"? Presumably, something like "most of people behaving in a certain way". But that is precisely what is in need of explanation. You need a definition of the "norm" that avoids tautological explanations such as "People switched positions once people switched positions".
'Using the legalization of gay marriage as an example of "preference falsification" would imply that people were privately in favor of legalizing gay marriage but misrepresented their belief as not favoring it, and then, at some point, stopped misrepresenting their true belief (which supposedly explain the legalization). Is this really the dynamic that took place?'
It's more accurate to state that support shifted intergenerationally. Gen X are probably the most politically apathetic generation in history- university professors used to bemoan the fact that we weren't interested in going to protests. We were interested in going to raves, and far from being apolitical, with hindsight, our defining feature was probably civic libertarianism. In this sense, the real problem for conservatives was that the government had gradually encroached into what was essentially a religious institution.
I also think there was a shift in the older generation, which wouldn't have happened if LGBT had shifted into authoritarian mode earlier (and is now reversing back, somewhat, especially amongst the young, because of said authoritarianism and the way intersectionalism plays favourites). This came about from knowing homosexuals who were perfectly sensible in every other respect. Our local publican was gay as a three bob note, and my dad mellowed considerably as a result (the guy was hilarious- people used to come from 30 miles away to experience his caustic wit). Sadly, this demographic seems to be on the decline.
Part of it may be that when most homosexuals are closeted, you don't have as many opportunities to see that they are normal people. I am pretty sure that one of my parents' closest friends was a lesbian. She was someone who I and my sister knew and liked, but it just didn't occur to me at the time what the pattern of her life implied.
The assumption is not that people were privately in favor of legalizing gay marriage but that most of them didn't really have an opinion, never having thought seriously about the issue, so expressed what they saw as the respectable view of the subject. I think Albatross makes that pretty clear.
If they didn't have an opinion (or preference), what exactly was "falsified" (i.e. misrepresented)? The very concept of "preference falsification" assumes that there is a private belief/preference that is being altered for public consumption.
Albatross' claim was not so much that they did not hold a (pro-gay marriage) belief; rather, it was more that the belief wasn't deeply-thought-out. The claim concerns *how* the belief was formed, not whether there was a belief or not.
This is why I stated government encroachment above, It's in Lady Liberty's nature to not bother others, if they're not bothering you. If they had attempted to FORCE churches to perform gay marriage ceremonies, it would have been a bloodbath.
It seems to me that what Albratross is describing there is simply "conformism". There is a difference.
Conformism: I believe X because other people believe X.
Preference falsification: I privately believe X while publicly making it appear as if I believe Y.
Using the legalization of gay marriage as an example of "preference falsification" would imply that people were privately in favor of legalizing gay marriage but misrepresented their belief as not favoring it, and then, at some point, stopped misrepresenting their true belief (which supposedly explain the legalization). Is this really the dynamic that took place?
Conformism illustrates that our belief-formation mechanisms do not function exclusively to represent reality and that they are sensitive to the consequences of belief acquisition. The reality of conformism implies that some of those consequences are social ones. More here: https://triangulation.substack.com/p/how-beliefs-become-signals
As to Albratross' claim that the debate made it common knowledge that Biden was "naked" (i.e. mentally incompetent) which supposedly explains Democrats' change of hearts regarding Biden's candidacy, here's a different take: the debate and its aftermath made it clear to key players that with Biden around they could not control the conversation: everyone would talk all the time about Biden's gaffs. Even if he is elected once again, everybody would talk about it. He would be a laughing stock. So in that sense, Biden stepping aside was not about Democrats suddenly realizing that Biden's cognitive state was not up to the task of the second mandate--it is about realizing that they would not be able to control the conversation. By making Biden step aside, the Democrats are effectively eliminating the Schelling point around which the opposition and the critics can coordinate and mobilize. In a corrupt country, a government does not fire its corrupt minister necessarily because the prime minister is not corrupt and because the corruption scandal has been unearthed, but because as long as the minister is in that government, the media and the opposition have a lot of ammunition to attack them.
I know I'm a bit late to this, but I do think you are right about the distinction.
With preference falsification, you're in a situation where people believe X but say not-X, because everyone else says not-X and deviating has a cost. Timur Kuran talked about the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. You think Communism is bad, but you believe you are in the minority and so say Communism is good. But in reality, everyone thinks Communism is bad but says Communism is good. There's a coordination problem. Then there's a signal that, in fact, others might agree with you, so you express that Communism is bad, which intensifies that signal to others. The cascade rapidly changes social reality.
It would be like if you worked with a bunch of judgmental vegetarians and you love hamburgers. You might lie and tell people you hate hamburgers and order Tofu, which you prefer less, and signal that you're a judgmental vegetarian, too. But then you find out your boss has a Slim Jim in their purse, and everyone admits they only ordered Tofu because they thought everyone else was vegetarian. Everyone is better off now that they can order hamburgers without being judged.
But if you, and everyone, were indifferent between hamburger and tofu, no cascade would take place because there's no individual reward for 'defecting' and getting to eat hamburgers.
The collapse of Biden's support fit preference falsification because, privately, everyone thought Biden was too old but wouldn't express it publicly until a signal (the debate) changed how acceptable it was to express your private belief.
The gay marriage story is an information cascade, but not a preference falsification (again, as you noted, unless people's private beliefs contradicted their public statements). Preference falsification *includes* an information cascade, but that information cascade has to be driven by people expressing their true preferences. It's really hard to distinguish between the two looking only at revealed preferences, though.
Yes, your and Timur Kuran's examples seem to me as clear cases of what I associate with the notion of "preference falsification," unlike some of the cases used by Albatross and David (some of which are simply cases of conformism without any meaningful "falsification" going on).
"The collapse of Biden's support fit preference falsification because, privately, everyone thought Biden was too old but wouldn't express it publicly until a signal (the debate) changed how acceptable it was to express your private belief."
Privately believing that Biden is unfit to be POTUS while publicly making opposite claims would be a case of preference falsification, although do note that in David's model those people _believed_ that Biden was fit to be president:
"Now apply the same logic to beliefs about Biden. As long as the accepted orthodoxy among Democrats is that Biden is in fine shape, fully competent to be president for another four years, that any purported evidence of mental failure is Republican propaganda, it is in the interest of a Democrat to believe it too."
Hence, no "falsification".
I think preferences falsification, or perhaps just belief falsification, is a bit applicable here, although I agree that many people simply believe whatever others say because it is what is normal and high status to believe. If the question is why people who should know better don't, then falsification seems to be appropriate. I don't think anyone with exposure to actual high functioning leaders or executives would look at Biden and say "Yea, he is totally on top of things." Now, if a person just never sees the videos of Biden wandering off, shaking hands with ghosts, asking if people who are dead are currently in the audience, it makes sense they are just not bothering to find out and saying what others say, but when people who pay attention see these videos and say "No, he seems fine to me," there is something more going on as their brain tries to rationalize (consciously or unconsciously) their current preferences and new information, and how to avoid the cognitive dissonance.
I think you hit the nail exactly on the head on the common knowledge point. So long as they could hide the more egregious Bidenisms they were fine, but once it was obvious the puppet wasn't running the show and was in no way able to do so even if he tried he had to go. It wasn't that no one in positions that matter didn't know he was well over the horizon of senility, it was that suddenly everyone else could blatantly see it, and it would all be downhill from there.
As far as the acceptance of gay marriage goes, I don't think the guy David Friedman quoted was saying people previously believed in it but were waiting for the in crowd to make it socially acceptable. I think he was saying that this was a case in which people held no really strong beliefs and were thus easily able to switch positions once it became the norm. But I also think that people of both sexes want to be sure no one thinks they're gay, so to be against gay marriage is a way of affirming that you're not gay yourself. I think there were a lot of gay people in the media and in politics who made a mighty effort to be understood as real people with ordinary lives. For the rest of us, it didn't cost much to go along once this case was made so clearly. The media may have led the charge because they either had many gay friends or because they are able to embrace many sides of an issue. Open-mindedness is necessary to their craft. So their tolerance became ours because they were so good at explaining it.
" I don't think the guy David Friedman quoted was saying people previously believed in it but were waiting for the in crowd to make it socially acceptable. I think he was saying that this was a case in which people held no really strong beliefs and were thus easily able to switch positions once it became the norm. "
Yes, of course, but there is no "falsification" going on in that case. See here for clarification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification
Also, note the the potential problem with saying "people switched positions once it became the norm". What is the "norm"? Presumably, something like "most of people behaving in a certain way". But that is precisely what is in need of explanation. You need a definition of the "norm" that avoids tautological explanations such as "People switched positions once people switched positions".
Great point.
'Using the legalization of gay marriage as an example of "preference falsification" would imply that people were privately in favor of legalizing gay marriage but misrepresented their belief as not favoring it, and then, at some point, stopped misrepresenting their true belief (which supposedly explain the legalization). Is this really the dynamic that took place?'
It's more accurate to state that support shifted intergenerationally. Gen X are probably the most politically apathetic generation in history- university professors used to bemoan the fact that we weren't interested in going to protests. We were interested in going to raves, and far from being apolitical, with hindsight, our defining feature was probably civic libertarianism. In this sense, the real problem for conservatives was that the government had gradually encroached into what was essentially a religious institution.
I also think there was a shift in the older generation, which wouldn't have happened if LGBT had shifted into authoritarian mode earlier (and is now reversing back, somewhat, especially amongst the young, because of said authoritarianism and the way intersectionalism plays favourites). This came about from knowing homosexuals who were perfectly sensible in every other respect. Our local publican was gay as a three bob note, and my dad mellowed considerably as a result (the guy was hilarious- people used to come from 30 miles away to experience his caustic wit). Sadly, this demographic seems to be on the decline.
Part of it may be that when most homosexuals are closeted, you don't have as many opportunities to see that they are normal people. I am pretty sure that one of my parents' closest friends was a lesbian. She was someone who I and my sister knew and liked, but it just didn't occur to me at the time what the pattern of her life implied.
The assumption is not that people were privately in favor of legalizing gay marriage but that most of them didn't really have an opinion, never having thought seriously about the issue, so expressed what they saw as the respectable view of the subject. I think Albatross makes that pretty clear.
If they didn't have an opinion (or preference), what exactly was "falsified" (i.e. misrepresented)? The very concept of "preference falsification" assumes that there is a private belief/preference that is being altered for public consumption.
Claiming to hold a belief when you really don't is also a form of falsification.
Albatross' claim was not so much that they did not hold a (pro-gay marriage) belief; rather, it was more that the belief wasn't deeply-thought-out. The claim concerns *how* the belief was formed, not whether there was a belief or not.
This is why I stated government encroachment above, It's in Lady Liberty's nature to not bother others, if they're not bothering you. If they had attempted to FORCE churches to perform gay marriage ceremonies, it would have been a bloodbath.