Liberals and conservatives are similarly motivated to avoid exposure to one another's opinions

TLDR: This paper found similar selective exposure motives on the political left and right across a variety of issues and found that people on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate willingly gave up a chance to win money to avoid hearing from the other side.

About: This article is published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.The article was published on 2017-09-01 and is currently open access. It has received 183 citations till now.

Figures

Figure 2. Interest levels in learning about why people planned on voting the way they did in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election (Study 3). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.

Table 4. Participants’ reported interest in hearing from like- and unlike-minded others on a variety of Culture War issues. The congenial versus uncongenial contrast statistics represent within-subject planned contrasts, such that positive effects mean that people would rather hear from like- over unlike-minded others. Power analyses assume an estimated effect size of d = 0.46. Bolded numbers are statistically significant.

Table 1. Participants’ reported interest in hearing from the other side compared to a set of comparison tasks. Statistics represent within-subject planned contrasts, such that positive effects mean that people would rather hear from the other side than perform this task, and vice versa for negative effects (U.S. sample, Study 3).

Figure 5. Mediation models testing whether people report desires to remain in their ideological bubble because they anticipate cognitive dissonance and a threat to their shared reality with the other person. We tested whether the same or different process was in effect for people who were for and against same-sex marriage using a moderated mediation model.

Figure 4. Desires to remain in one’s ideological bubble on the topic of legalizing same-sex marriage (SSM). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.

Table 5. Liberals and conservatives similarly desired to avoid belief-disconfirming opinions on the topic of same-sex marriage (SSM) because of anticipated cognitive dissonance and threats to a shared reality with the other person. Numbers represent unstandardized coefficients [95% confidence intervals, CIs] of a bootstrapped moderated mediation analysis with the two mediators analyzed simultaneously. Bolded numbers are significant.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the three theories that characterize liberals and conservatives?

System justification theory, social dominance theory, and right wing authoritarianism characterize liberals as thoughtful, tolerant of differing opinions, and openminded, and conservatives as fearful, prejudiced, and close-minded. 

Q2. What have the authors contributed in "Liberals and conservatives are similarly motivated to avoid exposure to one another’s opinions" ?

The majority of people on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate willingly gave up a chance to win money to avoid hearing from the other side ( Study 1 ). When thinking back to the 2012 U. S. Presidential election ( Study 2 ), ahead to upcoming elections in the U. S. and Canada ( Study 3 ), and about a range of other Culture War issues ( Study 4 ), liberals and conservatives reported similar aversion toward learning about the views of their ideological opponents. Rather, people on both sides indicated that they anticipated that hearing from the other side would induce cognitive dissonance ( e. g., require effort, cause frustration ) and undermine a sense of shared reality with the person expressing disparate views ( e. g., damage the relationship ; Study 5 ). 

Q3. What are the future works in "Liberals and conservatives are similarly motivated to avoid exposure to one another’s opinions" ?

Future research should include such a control condition. Future research should also explicitly communicate the odds of winning to participants. To rule out this explanation for the results of Study 2, Study 3 examined whether liberals and conservatives report a desire to avoid hearing from one another in the context of a future ( and not only a past ) election, and also tested hypotheses in two electoral contexts: The U. S. and Canada. Study 3 again found evidence of desires to avoid crosscutting information, both for people on the left and on the right, but now in the context of a future rather than a past election, and in the US and Canada. 

Q4. How many studies did the authors need to achieve statistical power?

Assuming a selective exposure effect size of d = 0.46 for political issues (Hart et al., 2009), the authors required N = 152 for between-subject designs (such as Study 1) and n = 40 within each cell of within-subject designs (Studies 2-5) to achieve 80% statistical power. 

Q5. What is the result of this desire to avoid ideological incongruous views?

The result of this desire to avoid ideological incongruous views is that liberals and conservatives live in ideological information bubbles, and what could ultimately be a contest of ideas is being replaced by two, non-interacting monopolies. 

Q6. How many people willingly gave up their chance to get out of having to hear from the other?

Approximately two-thirds of people willingly forfeited a chance at earning an additional $3 to get out of having to hear from the other side. 

Q7. What is the purpose of retweeting a crosscutting post?

Retweeting a crosscutting post involves multiple distinct processes: seeing the original post (exposure), a desire to share the post, and a motive for sharing the post—a motive that could be a desire to communicate approval, criticism, or even sarcastic mockery. 

Q8. What is the significance of the multilevel analysis?

Given the nested nature of the data (seven reported interest levels nested withinparticipants), multilevel modeling would provide a statistically powerful means of detecting a difference between liberals and conservatives in their preference for congenial over uncongenial views, should one exist. 

Q9. What is the meaning of the personal discomfort thesis?

This personal discomfort thesis aligns with the well-supported notion that selective exposure is a form of self-defense against feeling threatened (Webb, Chang, & Benn, 2013; Hart et al., 2009). 

Q10. What was the average age of the American sample?

The American sample (102 Obama supporters, 99.6% power, and 43 Romney supporters, 84% power) was 52% female and 48% male, 37 years old on average (SD = 12), and slightly liberal on average (M = -11, SD = 62). 

Q11. What did the participants do to enter a drawing?

participants had the option toinstead read and answer questions about attitude-confirming statements to enter a drawing for $7. 

Q12. What is the reason why Vicki Kennedy was disinvited to give a commencement?

And Vicki Kennedy (wife of the late Senator Ted Kennedy) was disinvited to give a commencement speech at Anna Maria College (a Catholic institution) in 2012 because of objections to her liberal views on social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage (Kabas, 2014). 

Q13. What is the theory of shared reality?

According to the theory of shared reality (Echterhoff, Higgins, & Levine,2009), people have a fundamental need to feel mental synchrony with others. 

Q14. What is the main reason why the study is so high in external validity?

Although high in external validity, an accompanying limitation of real world studies is that many factors play a role in manifesting a behavioral trend, complicating the interpretation of the results. 

Q15. What did the authors find in the Supplemental Materials?

For both political and non-political information, liberals and conservatives exhibited a similarly strong desire to hear congenial views and avoid uncongenial ones (see the Supplemental Materials). 

Q16. What is the effect of a mixed model ANOVA?

Consistent with the hypothesis, a 4(judge: Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Undecided;between) 2(target: Harper, Mulcair; within) mixed model ANOVA yielded an interaction, F(3,142) = 27.30, p < .001, ω2 = .326 (along with main effects of judge and target, Fs ≥ 4.87, p ≤ .003, ω2 ≥ .066), as did a 2(judge: Conservative, NDP) 2(target: Harper, Mulcair) mixed model ANOVA, F(1,67) = 72.07, p < .001, ω2 = .486 (and a main effect of target, F = 6.25, p = .02, ω2 = .036, but no main effect of judge, F = 2.38, p = .13, ω2 = .020). 

Q17. What was the proportion of people who gave up to avoid hearing from the other side?

Of them,62% chose to give up $3 to avoid hearing from the other side, a proportion greater than one would expect by chance, χ2(1, N = 245) = 11.94, p < .001, φ = .22.