Joe -
You might think about including the Lord, Ross, and Lepper article
about the effects of biased assimilation of information. It at least brings
into question the assumption that reasoned discussion moderates extremist
views. People who held extreme views about capital punishment read a
balanced debate on that topic, after which their attitudes towards capital
punishment were re-measured. Not only did they not come to see the sense of
the opposite viewpoint, they actually tended to become more extreme in their
views. I think the implications for peace studies are obvious, right?
Here's a brief summary I wrote a few years ago:
======================
The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that persons with
opposing preconceptions about a social issue will show increased, rather
than decreased disagreement when exposed to identical information. This
hypothesis follows from the top-down nature of human information processing.
People evaluate information in part by its consistency with prior beliefs.
This "biased assimilation effect" includes the tendencies to
1. Differentially remember strengths of confirming evidence and weaknesses
of disconfirming evidence,
2. Judge the relevance and reliability of evidence based on whether the
evidence supports or contradicts existing beliefs, and
3. Examine disconfirming evidence far more critically than confirming
evidence.
The authors noted that if these tendencies are actually found in
human evaluation of evidence, then persons on opposite sides of a
social issue should use identical evidence to strengthen their preexisting
beliefs, thus becoming more polarized, rather than less, when confronted
with a body of evidence.
...
....
As expected, initial evaluations of the quality of the studies and
of how convincingly the studies supported the deterrence claim were related
to the subjects' prior beliefs. Studies were rated as being of higher
quality and more convincing when they supported a subject's prior
attitudes/beliefs. There was also a significant positive correlation between
how well done a study was judged to be, and how convincing it was seen to
be. The authors include a table with 16 comments (not intended to be
representative) by subjects about the studies.
...
....
The increased polarization hypothesis was also supported. As
compared with their attitudes at the beginning of the study, proponents of
capital punishment were more in favor (t(23) = 5.07, p < .001) and opponents
more opposed (t(23) = -3.34, p < .01) at the end of the study. There was no
effect of order of presentation, nor was there an interaction between
initial attitude and order of presentation. Similarly, compared with their
beliefs at the beginning of the study, proponents had greater belief (t(23)
= 4.26, p < .001) and opponents less belief (t(23) = -3.79, p < .001) in the
deterrence effect of capital punishment.
Furthermore, the amount of attitude change was related to the
difference in subjects' ratings of how convincing the studies were (r = .56,
p < .001) and how well done the studies were (r = .56, p < .001).
Those differences were also predictive of the subjects' changes in
belief regarding the deterrence effect (convincing: r = .53, p < .001,
well-done: r = .57, p < .001).
=======================
Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1979). Biased assimilation and
attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently
considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37,
2098-2109.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
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