Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Leonardo Bursztyn Author-Name-First: Leonardo Author-Name-Last: Bursztyn Author-Email: bursztyn@uchicago.edu Author-Workplace-Name: University of Chicago and NBER Author-Name: Georgy Egorov Author-Name-First: Georgy Author-Name-Last: Egorov Author-Email: g-egorov@kellogg.northwestern.edu Author-Workplace-Name: Kellogg School of Management and NBER, Author-Name: Ingar Haaland Author-Name-First: Ingar Author-Name-Last: Haaland Author-Email: ingar.haaland@uib.no Author-Workplace-Name: University of Bergen and CESifo Author-Name: Aakaash Rao Author-Name-First: Aakaash Author-Name-Last: Rao Author-Email: arao@g.harvard.edu Author-Workplace-Name: Harvard University Author-Name: Christopher Roth Author-Name-First: Christopher Author-Name-Last: Roth Author-Email: roth@wiso.uni-koeln.de Author-Workplace-Name: University of Cologne and CEPR Title: Justifying Dissent Abstract: Dissent plays an important role in any society, but dissenters are often silenced through social sanctions. Beyond their persuasive effects, rationales providing arguments supporting dissenters' causes can increase the public expression of dissent by providing a "social cover" for voicing otherwisestigmatized positions. Motivated by a simple theoretical framework, we experimentally show that liberals are more willing to post a Tweet opposing the movement to defund the police, are seen as less prejudiced, and face lower social sanctions when their Tweet implies they had first read scientific evidence supporting their position. Analogous experiments with conservatives demonstrate that the same mechanisms facilitate anti-immigrant expression. Our findings highlight both the power of rationales and their limitations in enabling dissent and shed light on phenomena such as social movements, political correctness, propaganda, and anti-minority behavior. Length: 172 pages Classification-JEL: D83, D91, P16, J15 Keywords: Dissent; social image; rationales; social media Creation-Date: 2022-01 File-URL: https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_141_2022.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf File-Function: First version, 2022 Number: 141 Handle: RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:141