Study sheds new light on certainty of opinions

Date:
August 19, 2020
Source:
University at Buffalo
Summary:
Researchers for years have understood how attitudes held with
certainty might predict behavior, but psychologists now suggest
there may be a more general disposition at work that predicts
the certainty of newly formed evaluations, just as they do for
pre-existing opinions.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers for years have understood how attitudes held with certainty
might predict behavior, but a series of new studies led by a University
at Buffalo psychologist suggest there may be a more general disposition
at work that predicts the certainty of newly formed evaluations, just
as they do for pre- existing opinions.


==========================================================================
The findings, published in the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, could help polling researchers and others interested in
studying attitudes gain insights on a variety of matters -- including
those they aren't directly measuring.

Attitudes are our personal evaluations -- of anything. It might be
a political issue, other people, food, movies, cars, climate or even
yourself. Each example is a different target that people can evaluate. But these evaluations aren't the whole story. Attitude certainty -- the
extent to which people have a clear idea of, trust in, or belief that
their attitudes are correct -- is also important.

Attitudes that people are certain of are more likely to predict behavior
and are more stable than attitudes people doubt.

"If I'm positive toward a candidate, but am not very certain of that
attitude, I'm not as likely to vote for her as I would be if I were just
as positive, but were higher in my certainty," says Kenneth DeMarree,
an associate professor of psychology in UB's College of Arts and Sciences
and the paper's lead author.

"Most of the past research studying the origins of certainty has focused
on how people engage with each issue," he says. "If an issue is personally important to someone, if they think carefully about it, if it is linked
to their morals, they're likely to be more certain of their opinion on
that issue." What this new research shows is that some people tend to be certain -- and others uncertain -- across a wide range of their attitudes, something which hasn't previously been explored.



========================================================================== Where past research has examined how people think about and relate to individual issues, the new work suggests that there are general patterns
about how people think about and relate to nearly any issue they consider.

"The general tendency to be certain of one's attitudes, what we've labeled dispositional attitude certainty, is correlated with traits like how
much people enjoy thinking or their self-esteem," says DeMarree. "There
are likely a range of other aspects of the person that may relate to the tendency to be certain of one's attitudes in general, and some of our
follow-up work is seeking to explore this by targeting different reasons
people might be certain." "Ours is the first study to show that certainty
in an attitude, including an attitude that has not been formed yet, is generally related to one's certainty in other attitudes," DeMarree adds.

Is someone certain about the quality of the soup special at the corner
diner? Those most certain about that attitude may be more certain about
all items on that restaurant's menu, according to DeMarree. They may
also be more likely to act on those attitudes.

"For others that might not feel as certain in their attitudes of the soup
over the pizza, their attitudes won't as strongly predict the choices
they'll make," he says.

In addition to the study predicting attitude certainty for novel objects
and issues, DeMarree and his co-authors -- Richard E. Petty, distinguished professor at The Ohio State University, Pablo Brin~ol, a professor at Autonomous University of Madrid, and Ji Xia, a UB graduate student --
also examined how likely participants would be to rely on their attitudes.

And, as certainty in an individual attitude predicts whether a person is
likely to act on it, dispositional attitude certainty predicts people's likelihood of acting on their attitudes in general.

"People higher in dispositional attitude certainty seem to be relying
more on their attitudes across every domain we examined," DeMarree says,
adding that this effect was not found for everyone, and future research
will explore which people are easiest to predict.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_at_Buffalo. Original
written by Bert Gambini.

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Kenneth G. DeMarree, Richard E. Petty, Pablo Brin~ol, Ji
Xia. Documenting
individual differences in the propensity to hold attitudes with
certainty.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2020;
DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000241 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200819120702.htm

--- up 5 weeks, 1 hour, 55 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)