Political Tribalism
Political tribalism turns beliefs into loyalty signals, making update costs social rather than merely intellectual.
The Pattern
Political tribalism makes credence answerable to coalition identity. Claims are not evaluated only by support; they are evaluated by what accepting them would imply about one side, status, enemies, and belonging.
This changes the cost of updating. A private probability shift becomes a public act of disloyalty. When that happens, Assigned Credence may remain fixed even as Perceived Evidence quietly changes.
Where the Gap Opens
Tribalism can distort EP through selective media and social sorting. It can distort CA through identity pressure. The most stable tribal belief systems often involve both: members see a filtered evidence world and face punishment for admitting when even that filtered world becomes inconvenient.
Repair
Repair requires cross-pressures that make truth tracking socially possible. Private reflection, mixed coalitions, steelmanning opponents, issue-by-issue credences, and explicit uncertainty can lower the perceived betrayal cost of updating.
Adjacent References
These are starting points rather than exhaustive citations. They connect this page to nearby work in probability, calibration, cognitive bias, and social epistemology.
- |Ziva Kunda, "The Case for Motivated Reasoning" (1990).
- |Charles S. Taber and Milton Lodge, "Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs" (2006).