Independent opinions? On the causal foundations of belief formation and jury theorems

Franz Dietrich and Kai Spiekermann ()
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Kai Spiekermann: LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science

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Abstract: It is often claimed that opinions are more likely to be correct if they are held independently by many individuals. But what does it mean to hold independent opinions? To clarify this condition, we distinguish four notions of probabilistic opinion independence. Which notion applies depends on environmental factors such as commonly perceived evidence, or, more formally, on the causal network in which people interact and form their opinions. In a general theorem, we identify conditions on this network that guarantee opinion independence in each sense. Our results have implications for 'wisdom of crowds' arguments, as we illustrate by providing old and new jury theorems.

Keywords: Condorcet Jury Theorems; Causal dependencies between voters and their environment; Bayesian networks; deliberation; causal vs. probabilistic independence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Mind, 2013, 122, pp.655-685. ⟨10.1093/mind/fzt074⟩

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Related works:
Working Paper: Independent opinions? On the causal foundations of belief formation and jury theorems (2013)
Working Paper: Independent opinions? on the causal foundations of belief formation and jury theorems (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00978016

DOI: 10.1093/mind/fzt074

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