Four studies investigated the effects of attitude extremity and political ideology on the degree and direction of changes in issue attitudes following the presentation of mixed evidence. Based upon previous work, it was predicted that those holding relatively more extreme attitudes would resist changing those views when presented with a mixture of supporting and opposing statements and would potentially adopt more extreme evaluative positions – a phenomenon known as attitude polarization (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). Evaluative entrenchment or intensification was also expected among more politically conservative participants, based upon prior work describing cognitive rigidity and resistance to change as more characteristic of the political right than left (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). An interaction of attitude extremity and political ideology was also hypothesized, such that liberal individuals with moderate attitudes were expected to demonstrate the least propensity to polarize. Participants’ attitudes regarding abortion rights (Study 1), gun control (Study 2), tax increases (Study 3), and environmental preservation (Study 4) were assessed before and after reading statements that both opposed and supported the issue. Political ideology was also assessed, along with several individual difference factors. Across all four studies, attitude extremity significantly predicted evaluative change, although the pattern of that effect varied. Political ideology did not emerge consistently as a predictor of attitude change; however, significant interactive effects of extremity and ideology were found. In addition, several individual difference factors (i.e., gender, need for cognition, issue importance) were found to moderate the effects of the primary predictors on attitude change, and some divergent result patterns were found when comparing data from a college and non-college sample in Study 4. Taken together, these studies provide evidence that attitude extremity and political ideology influence the degree and direction of evaluative change following the presentation of mixed evidence. In addition, they identify other factors at work in effecting change versus resistance, thereby highlighting the multi-faceted and complex nature of persuasion in a political context.

Most consequential decisions are made by more than two people. People frequently argue with each other to make better decisions. However, most decision making research usually only involves small purchases and individual decisions. The lacking of investigation in high-cognition decisions and argumentative settings is the motivation of this research. Researchers studying decision making have largely focused on how the decisions that people make are affected by task characteristics, and how labile decisions are with respect to situational factors. However, the fact that many preferences are constructed does not imply that all constructions are equally good. That people differ from each other in thinking is obvious. How and why they differ is less clear. Therefore, the first two studies are foundational studies in order to find out the most important and germane individual difference factor that may be the best predictor of thinking ability, including argument generation quality, evaluation ability, and debiasing ability. I found that logical reasoning ability is the best predictor of both thinking and debiasing ability. Argumentative Theory (Mercier & Sperber, 2011) claims that when reasoning is used in argumentative contexts, the confirmation bias contributes to an efficient form of division of cognitive labor, and then lead to better decisions and attitude depolarization. In study 3, I provided implication evidence to show that either arguing with the other person or viewing arguments from the opposite perspective may lead to attitude depolarization. Most interestingly, individual differences did moderate the main effects. / Business Administration/Marketing

The mere thought effect is the tendency for favorable attitudes to become more favorable and unfavorable attitudes to become more unfavorable following thought (Tesser, 1978). Changes in belief-consistency and belief-confidence mediate this effect (Tesser, Martin, & Mendolia, 1995). However, there are self-monitoring differences in the extent to which people are driven by consistency in their beliefs (Fuglestad & Snyder, 2009; Snyder, 1974). It was predicted that mere-thought and self-monitoring will interactively influence attitude polarization. We also hypothesized that the interactive effects of mere-thought and self-monitoring on attitude polarization will be mediated by belief-consistency and belief-confidence. After indicating their initial attitudes about capital punishment, participants were randomly assigned to two different opportunities for thought (i.e., 60s or 180s condition) to list all beliefs about capital punishment. Participants independently responded to the 25-item Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974) and a measure on belief-confidence. As predicted, there was a marginally reliable significant interaction between mere-thought and self-monitoring. Low self-monitors compared to high self-monitors demonstrated more polarized attitudes when giving them more time to think about a target issue. As predicted, after controlling for belief-consistency and belief-confidence, the interaction between opportunity for thought and self-monitoring was attenuated. Limitations (i.e., problem with directionality, third variable problem, and threats to statistical validity) and suggestions for future research (i.e., conditions high self-monitors might exhibit more attitude polarization and exploring additional personality/situational moderators) were discussed.