We study how peer beliefs shape individual attitudes toward maternal labor supply using hypothetical scenarios that elicit recommendations on the labor supply choices of a mother with a young child and an information treatment embedded within geographically representative surveys of the US population. Across scenarios, we find that individuals are systematically misinformed about the extent of gender conservativeness of the people around them. Exposure to information on peer beliefs leads to a shift in recommendations, driven largely by information-based belief updating. The information treatment also increases (intended and actual) donations to a non-profit organization advocating for women in the workplace.

We conduct two survey experiments to study which information people choose to consume and how it affects their beliefs. In the first experiment, respondents choose between optimistic and pessimistic article headlines related to the COVID-19 pandemic and are then randomly shown one of the articles. Respondents with more pessimistic prior beliefs tend to prefer pessimistic headlines, providing evidence of confirmation bias. Additionally, respondents assigned to the less preferred article discount its information. The second experiment studies the role of partisan views, uncovering strong source dependence: news source revelation further distorts information acquisition, eliminating the role of priors in article choice.

We use a survey experiment to generate direct evidence on how people acquire and process information. Participants can buy different information signals that could help them forecast future national home prices. We elicit their valuations and exogenously vary the cost of information. Participants put substantial value on their preferred signal and, when acquired, incorporate the signal in their beliefs. However, they disagree on which signal to buy. As a result, making information cheaper does not decrease the cross-sectional dispersion of expectations. We provide a model with costly acquisition and processing of information, which can match most of our empirical results.

Using a unique, randomized information experiment embedded in a survey, this paper investigates how consumers’ inflation expectations respond to new information. We find that respondents, on average, update their expectations in response to (certain types of) information, and do so sensibly, in a manner consistent with Bayesian updating. As a result of information provision, the distribution of inflation expectations converges toward its center and cross-sectional disagreement declines. We document heterogeneous information processing by gender and present suggestive evidence of respondents forecasting under asymmetric loss. Our results provide support for expectation-formation models in which agents form expectations rationally but face information constraints.