2025/06/20 by Keith E. Stanovich, Maggie E. Toplak · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Religious Education and Schools #Political Philosophy and Ethics #Religion and Society Interactions
paper · doi:10.1080/13546783.2025.2520186
openalex publication_date 2025/06/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
The thinking disposition of actively open-minded thinking (AOT) has long been known to correlate with liberal ideology. In this study, we demonstrate that AOT is not just a proxy for a liberal worldview. We find that it is AOT—and not liberal ideology—that is more optimally associated with adaptive epistemic attitudes. In a study of 682 subjects, we found that AOT and liberal ideology moderately correlated but, nonetheless, AOT dissociated from liberalism in several respects. Political liberalism was positively associated with several aspects of left-wing authoritarianism, but AOT scores were significantly negatively correlated. Variables associated with non-adaptive psychological states and beliefs (e.g., belief in the paranormal, the Dark Triad, paranoia) were negatively correlated with AOT scores, but uncorrelated with liberal ideology. Political liberalism was positively correlated with the ability to discriminate between mature conspiratorial beliefs that actually occurred and those which did not, but AOT scores displayed a significantly higher correlation. AOT seems to associate exclusively with the parts of political liberalism that lead to positive epistemic consequences and to dissociate from any aspects of liberal ideology that lead to unwarranted belief and non-adaptive action.