1979 BiasedAssimilationandAttitudePo

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Notes

People who hold strong opinions on complex social issues are likely to examine relevant empirical evidence in a biased manner. They are apt to accept "confirming" evidence at face value while subjecting "disconfirming" evidence to critical evaluation, and, as a result, draw undue support for their initial positions from mixed or random empirical findings. Thus, the result of exposing contending factions in a social dispute to an identical body of relevant empirical evidence may be not a narrowing of disagreement but rather an increase in polarization. To test these assumptions, 48 undergraduates supporting and opposing capital punishment were exposed to 2 purported studies, one seemingly confirming and one seemingly disconfirming their existing beliefs about the deterrent efficacy of the death penalty. As predicted, both proponents and opponents of capital punishment rated those results and procedures that confirmed their own beliefs to be the more convincing and probative ones, and they reported corresponding shifts in their beliefs as the various results and procedures were presented. The net effect of such evaluations and opinion shifts was the postulated increase in attitude polarization.

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	Author	volume	Date Value	title	type	journal	titleUrl	doi	note	year
1979 BiasedAssimilationandAttitudePo	Lee Ross Charles G. Lord Mark R. Lepper			Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence.				10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2098		1979