Title:

Feeling Superior Is a Bipartisan Issue: Extremity (Not Direction) of Political Views Predicts Perceived Belief Superiority

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Author:

Elizabeth A. Harris and Jay J. Van Bavel

Abstract:

There is currently a debate in political psychology about whether dogmatism and belief superiority are symmetric or asymmetric across the ideological spectrum. Toner, Leary, Asher, and Jongman-Sereno (2013) found that dogmatism was higher among conservatives than liberals, but both conservatives and liberals with extreme attitudes reported higher perceived superiority of beliefs. In the current study, we conducted a preregistered direct and conceptual replication of this previous research using a large nationally representative sample. Consistent with Toner et al.’s findings, our results showed that conservatives had higher dogmatism scores than liberals, whereas both conservative and liberal extreme attitudes were associated with higher belief superiority compared with more moderate attitudes. As in their study, we also found that whether conservative or liberal attitudes were associated with higher belief superiority was topic dependent. Contrasting Toner et al.’s findings, our results also showed that ideologically extreme individuals had higher dogmatism. We discuss implications of these results for theoretical debates in political psychology.

Publication:

Association for Psychological Science

Publication Date:

2/6/2021

Citation:

Harris, E. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2021). Preregistered Replication of “Feeling Superior Is a Bipartisan Issue: Extremity (Not Direction) of Political Views Predicts Perceived Belief Superiority”. Psychological Science, 32(3), 451-458.

Topic:

Science of Belief Change

Commenter:

Amanda Morton

Comment Date:

10/12/2023

Comment:

This study finds that extremists (on both sides) tend to believe their beliefs are superior. Extremists tend to be confident in their beliefs and will reject outside advice in favor of their own inner knowledge.