On the Independent Roles of Cognitive & Political Sophistication: Variation Across Attitudinal Objects

Abstract

People are motivated to maintain consistency between importantly held identities, preferences, and judgments. In political contexts, motivated reasoning can help explain a wide range of political phenomena, including extremism, polarization, and misperceptions. However, recent findings in psychology have challenged this account. These perspectives emphasize the role of cognitive sophistication (e.g., analytical reasoning, numerical literacy) in political attitudes, but differ in terms of whether it is expected to attenuate or exacerbate politically motivated reasoning and belief in conspiracy theories. Yet prior investigations have not examined the relative and independent effects of both political and cognitive sophistication. Using data from two samples, including one sampled to approximate representativeness in the U.S., we demonstrate that both types of sophistication have independent and (at times) countervailing effects on belief in COVID‐19 conspiracy theories and other political attitudes. Our results are critical for theories of cognitive sophistication, political cognition, and attitudes, and the psychology of conspiracy theories.

Explaining political differences in attitudes to vaccines in France: partisan cues, disenchantment with politics and political sophistication

“…Our finding echoes that of studies who used education as a proxy for either political sophistication or for cognitive sophistication and found that the more educated tend to be less susceptible to misinformation and to hold beliefs that run counter to scientific consensus 3,8,9,14,17,38,39 . Explanations for this have tended to either draw on the relationship between education and scientific literacy or on the fact that cognitive sophistication can favour deliberate thinking which in turn promotes accuracy in belief formation (see in particular 15,38,40 ).…”

“…This is either because their surveys do not contain items pertaining to political sophistication and education can be considered a proxy of political sophistication, or because they focused on cognitive sophistication rather than political sophistication as the mechanism connecting partisan cues to belief formation. There is much debate over whether political sophistication or cognitive sophistication are what connects partisan cues to belief formation 40 . We believe that our data does not allow to distinguish precisely between the two because educational attainment is a very unsatisfactory proxy of cognitive skills, especially in finegrained analyses comparing with co-variables such as political sophistication.…”

Editorial—The truth is out there: The psychology of conspiracy theories and how to counter them

“…Two studies in this special issue aimed to shed further light on the debate between the role of cognitive sophistication versus motivated cognition as competing theoretical accounts of why people believe in conspiracy theories. Vitriol et al (2022) found some evidence for both accounts, in that political sophistication predicted reduced endorsement of COVID‐19 conspiracy theories for Democrats (but not Republicans) whereas greater cognitive reflection was associated with reduced belief in COVID‐19 conspiracy theories regardless of partisan identity. Similarly, Saltor et al (2022) found that higher cognitive reflection, actively open minded thinking (AOT) and weaker causal illusions (as measured by a computerized contingency learning task) were all associated with the tendency to better differentiate between fake and real news about COVID‐19.…”