IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v152y2025icp181-198.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Polarizing persuasion

Author

Listed:
  • Anderson, Axel
  • Pkhakadze, Nikoloz

Abstract

We introduce an equilibrium model of polarizing communication between a sender and two receivers. The sender's payoff is a function of the receivers' beliefs on a binary payoff relevant variable. All agents share a common prior about this variable. But we assume disagreement about a second binary variable, which enters no utility functions. We characterize the joint distribution of receiver posterior beliefs on the payoff relevant variable that can be implemented. An immediate consequence of this characterization is that the sender's payoff is non-decreasing in the prior disagreement between the two receivers. We measure polarization as the sender's expectation of the absolute difference between the receivers' posterior beliefs on the payoff relevant variable, and solve for the maximum polarization across all message services. Given extreme prior disagreement between the receivers, we solve for the optimal message service when the sender has monotone payoffs that are bi-concave or bi-convex.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Axel & Pkhakadze, Nikoloz, 2025. "Polarizing persuasion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 181-198.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:152:y:2025:i:c:p:181-198
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825625000594
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2025.04.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:152:y:2025:i:c:p:181-198. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.