Diverging Opinions

People often see the same evidence but draw opposite conclusions , becoming polarized over time. More surprisingly , disagreements persist even when they are commonly known. We derive a model and present an experiment showing that opinions can diverge when one- dimensional opinions are formed from two-dimensional information. When subjects are given sufficient information to reach agreement , however, disagreement persists. Subjects discount information when it is filtered through the actions of others, but not when it is presented directly , indicating that common knowledge of disagreement may be the result of excessive skepticism about the decision-making skills of others.