Use of Defensive and Receptive Reasoning Strategies and Receptiveness to Opposing Political Views

With unprecedented access to diverse political perspectives, individuals struggle to fairly engage with political content that disconfirms their previously held beliefs. By relying on defensive reasoning strategies such as counterarguing, derogating, and bolstering, participants have demonstrated motivated reasoning to defend their previously held views while engaging with opposing political views. Although researchers have examined specific defensive reasoning strategies, few studies of how individuals engage with opposing views have included both defensive and receptive reasoning strategies, and none have examined associations between strategies used and receptiveness to opposing views. Participants were adult subscribers to The Flip Side (n = 370), an online news program that sends subscribers a daily email featuring multiple perspectives on timely political issues. Although subscribers had access to information that confirmed and disconfirmed their previously held political beliefs, research participants reported on their use of defensive and receptive reasoning strategies while reading opposing political views. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) found that of the 94.9% of participants who were high users of defensive reasoning strategies, high receptive reasoning strategy users were significantly more receptive than those who were low receptive strategy users (p = .002). Hierarchical regression modelling was then used to examine the associations between gender, political orientation, and use of defensive and receptive reasoning strategies with receptiveness to opposing views. The final regression model described significant variance in receptiveness, F(9, 359) = 13.25, p < .001. Having more liberal attitudes, attitude polarization (extreme attitudes), and partisan polarization (extreme republican-democrat identification) were associated with less receptiveness. Gender and republican-democrat identification were not related to receptiveness. Defensive reasoning strategies did not describe significant variance in participants’ receptiveness (F-change = 1.4, p = .231). While counterarguing and derogating were used more than any other strategies, neither were related to receptiveness. Greater bolstering, on the other hand, was associated with less receptiveness after accounting for other variables in the model. The addition of the receptive reasoning strategies to the final model described significantly more variance in receptiveness (F-change = 10.91, p < .001). Challenging and reflecting were not individually associated with receptiveness, but more questioning was associated with more receptiveness. Collectively, these findings confirm the human tendency to utilize defensive reasoning with opposing political views, even among individuals who actively seek alternative perspectives. While defensive reasoning strategy use did not relate to receptiveness, results also support the conclusion that receptive reasoning strategies relate to receptiveness to opposing views. In addition, this study supports the value of including receptive and defensive reasoning strategies in future studies of individuals’ receptiveness to opposing viewpoints, regardless of their political orientation.