Open-Minded Cognition

Abstract

The present research conceptualizes open-minded cognition as a cognitive style that influences how individuals select and process information. An open-minded cognitive style is marked by willingness to consider a variety of intellectual perspectives, values, opinions, or beliefs-even those that contradict the individual's opinion. An individual's level of cognitive openness is expected to vary across domains (such as politics and religion). Four studies develop and validate a novel measure of open-minded cognition, as well as two domain-specific measures of religious and political open-minded cognition. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (controlling for acquiescence bias) are used to develop the scales in Studies 1 to 3. Study 4 demonstrates that these scales possess convergent and discriminant validity. Study 5 demonstrates the scale's unique predictive validity using the outcome of Empathic Concern (Davis, 1980). Study 6 demonstrates the scale's unique predictive validity using the outcomes of warmth toward racial, religious, and sexual minorities.

Priming Resistance to Persuasion decreases adherence to Conspiracy Theories

“…In fact, one could think of several ways RP priming could affect CB adherence. When taking a closer look at the scale, one cannot help notice the similarity between the RP scale items (i.e., 'I find my opinions to be changeable', 'It is hard for me to change my ideas' , see Knowles & Linn, 2004, p;.90) and the concept of Open-Minded Cognition (Price, Ottati, Wilson, & Kim, 2015), which is defined as a willingness to consider ideas and opinions that are different and sometimes contradict individuals' own views. Because Open-Minded Cognition is part of a broader 'analytical reasoning' style it has been found to be associated with lower levels of conspiracist ideation (Swami, Voracek, Stieger, Tran, & Furnham, 2014).…”

Correcting Misperceptions: The Causal Role of Motivation in Corrective Science Communication About Vaccine and Food Safety

“…Support for policy aimed at stimulating people to vaccinate their children and intention to vaccinate one's children were measured with responses to single statements. Open-minded cognition (OMC) was measured using the OMC scale developed and validated by Price et al (2015). Trust in the NHS, trust in scientists, perceived reliability of the information provided to the participant, perceived knowledge of vaccines, and importance of the topic were measured with single response items.…”

On the belief that beliefs should change according to evidence: Implications for conspiratorial, moral, paranormal, political, religious, and science beliefs

“…For example, people may differ in their "criteria" for belief; although some hold that evidence and scientific consensus are most important, others believe that "knowledge of the heart" should also be a central consideration (Metz, Weis-berg & Weisberg, 2018). Indeed, the actively open-minded thinking scale (AOT) was created to assess (in part) the belief that it is good to seek evidence that may conflict with intuitions (Baron, 2008;Baron et al, 2015;Baron, 1985;Stanovich & West, 1997; see also Price, Ottati, Wilson & Kim, 2015, for a measure based more on self-report) -a tendency that is associated with improved decision making over and above intelligence or cognitive ability (Stanovich & West, 2000;Stanovich & West, 1998). Moreover, much like individual differences in cognitive reflection, high AOT has been linked to skepticism about supernatural claims (Baron et al, 2015;Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler & Fugelsang, 2014;Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013) and superstition (Sá, West, & Stanovich, 1999), indicating that the AOT scale may index some aspects of openness to evidence in belief formation and revision.…”