Development of an Integrated Earth System Model for Prediction of Global Environmental Changes

2003/01/01 by William Hart, Dolores Albarracín, Alice H. Eagly +11 · 4 citations
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Affect (linguistics) #Atmosphere (unit) #Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics #Carbon cycle #Climate change #Climate model #Climate system #Climate variability and models #Climatology #Component (thermodynamics) #Conviction #Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion #Earth system science #Ecology #Ecosystem #Environmental science #Feeling #General Circulation Model #Geography #Geology #Global change #Global warming #Media Influence and Health #Meta-analysis #Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations #Meteorology #Oceanography #Perception #Preference #Psychology #Quality (philosophy) #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology #Statistics

paper · doi:10.1037/a0015701

openalex publication_date 2003/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

A meta-analysis assessed whether exposure to information is guided by defense or accuracy motives. The studies examined information preferences in relation to attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in situations that provided choices between congenial information, which supported participants' pre-existing attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors, and uncongenial information, which challenged these tendencies. Analyses indicated a moderate preference for congenial over uncongenial information (d=0.36). As predicted, this congeniality bias was moderated by variables that affect the strength of participants' defense motivation and accuracy motivation. In support of the importance of defense motivation, the congeniality bias was weaker when participants' attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors were supported prior to information selection; when participants' attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors were not relevant to their values or not held with conviction; when the available information was low in quality; when participants' closed-mindedness was low; and when their confidence in the attitude, belief, or behavior was high. In support of the importance of accuracy motivation, an uncongeniality bias emerged when uncongenial information was relevant to accomplishing a current goal.

Citations

• Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence.
• Distribution of the standardized mean change effect size for meta‐analysis on repeated measures
• The Functional Approach to the Study of Attitudes
• Consequences of Automatic Evaluation: Immediate Behavioral Predispositions to Approach or Avoid the Stimulus
• The Role of Defensive Confidence in Preference for Proattitudinal Information: How Believing That One Is Strong Can Sometimes Be a Defensive Weakness
• Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing.
• The case for motivated reasoning.

Cited by

• Small Word Change, Large Effect on News Users? How the Use of Gender-Inclusive Language in News Articles Influences News Selection and News Engagement
• Liberals and conservatives are similarly motivated to avoid exposure to one another's opinions
• Hierarchy in the eye of the beholder: (Anti-)egalitarianism shapes perceived levels of social inequality.
• Confirmation bias [wikipedia]