Abstract
Individuals strive to make decisions that are consistent not only with their consumer preferences but also with their psychological needs and preferences. However, they are confronted with huge amounts of complex, ambiguous or even false information. Ideologies and belief systems provide guidance to process and evaluate information and give a coherent and comprehensible interpretation of reality. While belief systems have this important function the first question is why is an individual attracted by a particular belief system? Individuals choose a belief system that resonates with their subjective psychological needs
and preferences. Second, how do individuals search for ideologies and fi nd out which ideologies match them best? We model the individual's sequential information search for the best matching ideology by applying Bayesian learning and standard utility optimization. Third, once a particular ideology is chosen individuals adhere to its rules and norms when making everyday decisions.