Explaining contentious political issues promotes open-minded thinking.

Cognitive scientists suggest that inviting people to explain contentious political issues might reduce intergroup toxicity because it exposes people to how poorly they understand the issue. However, whether providing explanations can result in more open-minded political thinking remains unclear. On one hand, inviting people to explain a political issue might make them more impartial and open-minded in their thinking. On the other hand, an invitation to explain a contentious political issue might lead to myside bias-rationalization of one's default position. Here, we address these contrasting predictions in five experiments (N = 1884; three pre-registered), conducted across a variety of contexts: with graduate students interacting with an actor in a laboratory setting, with US residents at the peak of the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections, with UK residents before the highly polarized 2019 Brexit vote, and with gun-control partisans. Across studies, we found that explaining politically contentious topics resulted in more open-minded thinking, an effect that generalized across coded (Studies 1-4) and self-report (Studies 3-4) measures. We also observed that participants who were made to feel like their explanations were welcomed felt closer to their discussion partner (Studies 3-4), an effect that generalized to all outgroup members with whom they disagreed with about the politically contentious issue (Study 4). We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings, and the potential for explanations to foster open-minded political engagement.

In it together: Shared reality with instrumental others is linked to goal success.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on Sep 07 2023 (see record 2024-05962-001). In the original article, the abstract was revised. Specifically, there were errors in the the second and third sentences of the fifth paragraph of the Shared Reality section, fifth sentence of the Present Research section, An updated Figure 1 now appears in the erratum. NIO counterpart and and the specific note in Table 3, the first parenthetical text in the Procedure and Materials section in Study 2c, the phrase its NIO counterpart in the Discussion section of Study 2c, last sentence of the second paragraph of Study 3, third sentence in the third paragraph of Study 3, first sentence in the third paragraph of the Results section, the phrase their NIO counterparts in both the Self-Reported Goal Success and GPA sections of Study 4c, NIO counterpart and the specific note in Table 9, last phrase in the second paragraph in the Discussion section of Study 4, and the in-text citation of Footnote 9 in the Contribution to Understanding the Interpersonal Influences on Goal Success.] Why are some people more successful than others? In addition to individual factors (e.g. self-control), research has recently suggested that the quality of people's interpersonal relationships is crucial for success. Successful people do not just like and feel close to instrumental objects (e.g., study material, the gym), they also like and feel close to instrumental others (IOs; people who make goal success more likely). Yet instrumental people have one crucially distinct feature that instrumental objects do not: A mind of their own. We propose that while a growing body of work suggests that the sense of closeness to IOs (others who make goal success more likely) is crucial for goal success, prior work has not examined how the sense of the quality of people's relationships with IOs, and therefore goal success, likely depends on their ability to "merge minds" with them, experiencing both the goal and the world at large (i.e., shared reality) in the same way as one's IO contributes to goal success. Specifically, the present research (N = 1,326) explored (a) whether people experience shared reality-the perception of shared attitudes and judgments about the world-with IOs and (b) whether those who do so achieve greater goal success. Participants perceiving their romantic partner as instrumental for their goals experienced more shared reality with them (Study 1); participants also reported greater shared reality with IOs relative to noninstrumental others (NIO; Study 2). Higher shared reality with IOs was linked to more goal success initially, (Studies 2-4), 3-4 weeks later (Study 2c), and higher grade point averages (Study 4). These effects held when controlling for IO liking, closeness, epistemic trust, and NIO shared reality. Self-efficacy consistently mediated the effect of IO shared reality on goal success, indicating that IO shared reality may bolster people's epistemic confidence in their abilities. Overall, findings suggest that shared reality with IOs may play an important role in goal success. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Predictors and consequences of intellectual humility.

In a time of societal acrimony, psychological scientists have turned to a possible antidote - intellectual humility. Interest in intellectual humility comes from diverse research areas, including researchers studying leadership and organizational behaviour, personality science, positive psychology, judgement and decision-making, education, culture, and intergroup and interpersonal relationships. In this Review, we synthesize empirical approaches to the study of intellectual humility. We critically examine diverse approaches to defining and measuring intellectual humility and identify the common element: a meta-cognitive ability to recognize the limitations of one's beliefs and knowledge. After reviewing the validity of different measurement approaches, we highlight factors that influence intellectual humility, from relationship security to social coordination. Furthermore, we review empirical evidence concerning the benefits and drawbacks of intellectual humility for personal decision-making, interpersonal relationships, scientific enterprise and society writ large. We conclude by outlining initial attempts to boost intellectual humility, foreshadowing possible scalable interventions that can turn intellectual humility into a core interpersonal, institutional and cultural value.

The importance of environmental threats and ideology in explaining extreme self-sacrifice.

We argue that Whitehouse's group-based model neglects two key contextual variables: environmental threats and ideology. Environmental threats lead to extremism outside of group settings and predispose individuals toward joining ideologically zealous groups. Ideologies and environmental threats can also explain why certain groups adopt norms that encourage violent self-sacrifice.