The potential role of actively open-minded thinking in preventing motivated reasoning about controversial science

Abstract

Ideologically motivated rejection of scientific evidence can be harmful to individuals and society, especially regarding consequential issues like climate change. A growing base of evidence suggests a cognitive style known as Actively Open-Minded Thinking (AOT) may reduce ideological rejection of scientific findings. In this article, we test the association between AOT and Americans' beliefs that global warming is mostly human-caused, a position supported by scientific consensus. We hypothesized that political conservatives with high AOT would be more likely than those with low AOT to acknowledge human-caused global warming. We predicted no such effect for liberals. Contrary to expectations, there was an unmoderated relationship between AOT and human causation belief. Higher levels of AOT were associated with increased likelihood of belief in human-caused global warming, regardless of participants' political ideology, scientific knowledge, or scientific media use. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.