The effect of dialectical thinking on the integration of contradictory information

Abstract

Although lower dialectical thinking has been associated with greater extremity in consumer responses to univalent information, we demonstrate that low, as compared to high, dialectical thinkers express more moderate attitudes when they result from processing contradictory information. Specifically, our studies find that contradictory product information is less fluently processed by consumers low (vs. high) in dialectical thinking, which reduces their judgmental confidence and, in turn, generates more moderate attitudes. We contribute to the literature by showing that in contexts of contradictory information integration, current theory regarding the consequences of dialectical thinking needs to be extended to include not only an attenuation of the extremity effect prior research has found, but a complete reversal. Our results further imply that processing fluency not only impacts attitude valence but, more generally, attitude extremity.