No association between numerical ability and politically motivated reasoning in a large US probability sample

Abstract

The highly influential theory of “Motivated System 2 Reasoning” argues that analytical, deliberative (“System 2”) reasoning is hijacked by identity when considering ideologically charged issues—leading people who are more likely to engage in such reasoning to be more polarized, rather than more accurate. Here, we fail to replicate the key empirical support for this theory across five contentious issues, using a large gold-standard nationally representative probability sample of Americans. While participants were more accurate in evaluating a contingency table when the outcome aligned with their politics (even when controlling for prior beliefs), we find that participants with higher numeracy were more accurate in evaluating the contingency table, regardless of whether or not the table’s outcome aligned with their politics. These findings call for a reconsideration of the effect of identity on analytical reasoning.

Numeracy does not polarize climate change judgments: Numerate people are more knowledgeable and knowledge is power.

“…In contrast, there is good reason to generally expect to find the opposite. For example, the estimated unique association between numeracy and accurate climate change knowledge in the present set of studies was roughly 3 times larger than the estimated magnitude of the unreplicated polarization effect between numeracy and subjective attitudes that was observed in a small subsample of participants in prior research (Kahan et al, 2012; also see Ballarini & Sloman, 2017;Maguire et al, 2022;Persson et al, 2021;Stagnaro et al, 2023, for failure of replications; see Supplemental Material S8 for effect size comparisons). To the extent, the current findings generalize, numeracy can be expected to predict people's independent acquisition of more accurate knowledge about most risks in general, including controversial risks.…”

Susceptibility to Online Misinformation: A Systematic Meta-Analysis of Demographic and Psychological Factors

“…The literature shows conflicting results for motivated reflection. For example, Sultan et al (2023) find an effect for motivated reflection on veracity judgments, whereas Batailler et al (2021) do not (see also Bago et al, 2020;Linden et al, 2018;Persson et al, 2021;Stagnaro et al, 2023).…”