Why do we discriminate? The role of motivated reasoning

Markus Eyting

No 356, SAFE Working Paper Series from Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE

Abstract: Identifying the cause of discrimination is crucial to design effective policies and to understand discrimination dynamics. Building on traditional models, this paper introduces a new explanation for discrimination: discrimination based on motivated reasoning. By systematically acquiring and processing information, individuals form motivated beliefs and consequentially discriminate based on these beliefs. Through a series of experiments, I show the existence of discrimination based on motivated reasoning and demonstrate important differences to statistical discrimination and taste-based discrimination. Finally, I demonstrate how this form of discrimination can be alleviated by limiting individuals' scope to interpret information.

Keywords: discrimination; belief formation; motivated reasoning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 D90 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:safewp:356

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