An Adversarial Collaboration on the Rigidity-of-the-Right, Rigidity-of-Extremes, or Symmetry: The Answer Depends on the Question
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: In an adversarial collaboration, two preregistered U.S.-based studies (total N = 6,181) tested three hypotheses regarding the relationship between political ideology and belief rigidity (operationalized as less evidence-based belief updating): rigidity-of-the-right, symmetry, and rigidity-of-extremes. Across both studies, general and social conservatism were weakly associated with rigidity (|b| ~ .05), and conservatives were more rigid than liberals (Cohen’s d ~ .05). Rigidity generally had null associations with economic conservatism, as well as social and economic political attitudes. Moreover, general extremism (but neither social nor economic extremism) predicted rigidity in Study 1, and all three extremism measures predicted rigidity in Study 2 (average |bs| ~ .07). Extreme rightists were more rigid than extreme leftists in 60% of the significant quadratic relationships. Given these very small and semi-consistent effects, broad claims about strong associations between ideology and belief updating are likely unwarranted. Rather, psychologists should turn their focus to examining the contexts where ideology strongly correlates with rigidity.
Authors: Shauna Marie Bowes, Cory J Clark, Lucian Gideon Conway, Thomas H Costello, Danny Osborne, Phil Tetlock, Jan-Willem van Prooijen
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W4413129599