more nuanced. But the "goodand"bad"in our simple one-dimensional case capt the important feat ure of categoric at ion: readers have coarse rat her than fine-t beliefs.Specifically, define t, and t to be the posit ive and negat ive categories and assume these are sy mmetric in that t=-t6 Denote the categorical thinker'sbeliefs to. We assume that he believes in the category closest to what the Bayesian would believe. In this context. that means that he believes t when the Bayesian would have believed a posit ive tand he chooses t if the Bayesian would have expected a negative t if t> (1) t if te=I For example, suppose the reader has several pieces of ev nce mt which sugg Wen Ho Lee is a spy but some of which suggest the government scape-goated him A categorical t hinker walks away having placed Wen Ho Lee in the spy category, essent ially collapsing his informat ion into this simply summary a key feature of story telling is that stories need to be memorable. To capture this idea, we assume that readers forget some of the stories they read. Specificall re assume t hat the reader selectively forget s information that is inconsistent wit h his category. This select ive recall is an extension of t he reader holding coarse beliefs. He recalls dat a t hat just ify these coarse beliefs. In the above example, once the categorical t hinker places Wen Ho Lee in the spy category, he is less likely to remember stories which suggest t hat the government scapegoated him. Formally, we assume that recall probabilities are a funct ion of consistency wit h t he reader's category after he reads the story. So a story is more likely to be remembered if sign)=signt). specifically inconsistent stories have probability f of being remembered and consistent stories have lowing more categories does not change the "It is worth noting that not every category or story-line is equally likely. The background for any particul ar news item deter hich st ories fit. The t to elucidate exactly how any story is spun, but to underst and how the narr ative imperative inter acts with competition Several psy chology experiments suggest that category consistent information is more likely to be remem bered than category inconsistent inform ation. This is discussed in greater detail in Mullainathan(2002) POne might wonder whether extreme in cosistent stories would al so be remembered. In this set-up, they uld be if they are big h to change the readers category. In this case, they bec me consistent with the new category. If they. simplified, summary world-view of the reader: ader's mind, then they are discarded re inconsistent but not enough to cha since they dont fitmore nuanced. But the \good" and \bad" in our simple one-dimensional case captures the important feature of categorization: readers have coarse rather than ne-tuned beliefs. Specically, dene t+ and t￾ to be the positive and negative categories and assume these are symmetric in that t+ = ￾t￾.6 Denote the categorical thinker's beliefs to be t^ c. We assume that he believes in the category closest to what the Bayesian would believe. In this context, that means that he believes t+ when the Bayesian would have believed a positive t and he chooses t￾ if the Bayesian would have expected a negative t. Formally: t^ c = 8 >< >: t+ if t >^ 0 t￾ if t <^ = 0 (1) For example, suppose the reader has several pieces of evidence most of which suggest Wen Ho Lee is a spy but some of which suggest the government scape-goated him. A categorical thinker walks away having placed Wen Ho Lee in the spy category, essentially collapsing his information into this simply summary.7 A key feature of story telling is that stories need to be memorable. To capture this idea, we assume that readers forget some of the stories they read. Specically, we assume that the reader selectively forgets information that is inconsistent with his category.8 This selective recall is an extension of the reader holding coarse beliefs. He recalls data that justify these coarse beliefs. In the above example, once the categorical thinker places Wen Ho Lee in the spy category, he is less likely to remember stories which suggest that the government scape-goated him.9 Formally, we assume that recall probabilities are a function of consistency with the reader's category after he reads the story. So a story is more likely to be remembered if sign() = sign(t^ c). Specically, inconsistent stories have probability f of being remembered and consistent stories have 6Allowing more categories does not change the results. 7 It is worth noting that not every category or story-line is equally likely. The background for any particular news item determines which stories t. The purpose of our model is not to elucidate exactly how any one story is spun, but to understand how the narrative imperative interacts with competition. 8Several psychology experiments suggest that category consistent information is more likely to be remem￾bered than category inconsistent information. This is discussed in greater detail in Mullainathan (2002). 9One might wonder whether extreme incosistent stories would also be remembered. In this set-up, they would be if they are big enough to change the reader's category. In this case, they become consistent with the new category. If they are inconsistent but not enough to change the reader's mind, then they are discarded since they don't t the simplied, summary world-view of the reader. 7