Seize and freeze: Openness to Experience shapes judgments of societal threat

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Highlights

  • Examined how Openness to Experience shapes social worldviews.

  • Extends the Dual Process Model of ideology and prejudice using an experimental design.

  • Adapts a classic anchoring and adjustment paradigm.

  • Tested the effect of Openness on anchoring in two studies.

  • Indicates that low Openness increases the tendency to be anchored by threat-relevant cues.

Abstract

The Dual Process Model of ideology and prejudice (DPM) proposes specific information-processing mechanisms by which broad-bandwidth personality shapes social worldviews. We adapt a classic anchoring and adjustment paradigm and show that Openness to Experience interacts with exposure to information about safety and threat to shape judgments of societal threat and danger. Those low in Openness to Experience were more sensitive to anchor information about the proportion of dangerous and threatening people in society (Study 1). The moderating effect of Openness to Experience on dangerous worldview estimates was due specifically to an intellect or cognitive component of this personality trait, rather than an aesthetic component (Study 2). These results indicate low Openness increases the tendency to be anchored by threat-relevant cues.

Introduction

The broad-bandwidth Big-Five personality trait, Openness to Experience, has drawn attention for its role in the cognitive processes underlying authoritarian attitudes and prejudice (e.g., Kruglanski and Webster, 1996, Van Hiel et al., 2004). Openness to Experience, relative to the other four Big-Five personality dimensions, may operate as a seize and freeze mechanism; a tendency to be more amenable to stereotype-consistent information, and then resistant to potentially alternative evidence. According to the Dual Process Model of ideology and prejudice (DPM; Duckitt, 2001), low levels of Openness to Experience may lead to higher authoritarianism indirectly via schematic beliefs that the social world is dangerous and threatening. Building on this reasoning, Duckitt and Sibley have argued in various papers that those low in Openness to Experience develop more authoritarian attitudes because they are more attentive to and therefore more influenced by information signaling danger and threat from outgroups (see Duckitt and Sibley, 2009, Duckitt and Sibley, 2010, Sibley and Duckitt, 2008, Sibley and Duckitt, 2013a, Sibley and Duckitt, 2013b). This proposition has not been directly tested, however. Here we take a motivated social cognition perspective, arguing that perceptions of the world as dangerous arise from an inflated sensitivity to normative information signaling social danger or threat.

We draw upon the classic experimental design used to test cognitive anchoring and adjustment as a framework for empirically examining Sibley and Duckitt, 2008, Sibley and Duckitt, 2013a thesis that Openness to Experience shapes perceptions of societal danger through an increased sensitivity to information signaling threat and danger from outgroup members. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) describes a universal cognitive bias in which judgments can be unduly influenced by prior information. We manipulate (i.e., anchor) participants’ beliefs about the frequency of dangerous social events by applying a recently developed frequency estimation measure developed and validated specifically for this purpose (Perry and Sibley, 2010, Perry et al., 2013a). Openness to Experience should only determine beliefs that the world is more dangerous when perceptions of the social world as characteristically high (rather than low) in danger are primed.

The DPM (Duckitt, 2001) identifies dual cognitive-motivational processes that determine individual differences in prejudice. According to the DPM, these differences are reliably predicted by motivational goals for group-based dominance and superiority – indexed by Social Dominance Orientation (SDO; Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994) – and social cohesion and collective security – indexed by Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, 1981). More recent research has integrated the Big-Five model of personality (Sibley and Duckitt, 2008, Sibley and Duckitt, 2009) – a model describing five relatively independent and broad-bandwidth dimensions ofpersonality (Goldberg, 1999). The dimensions are labeled: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Openness to Experience (and possibly Conscientiousness) is thought to be the main dimension of personality underlying RWA, the effects of which are partially mediated by perceptions of the social world as dangerous and threatening – a dangerous worldview (Sibley & Duckitt, 2008).

Forming the other major ideological attitude dimension of the DPM, SDO stems from beliefs that the social world is a ruthless competitive jungle in which the strong rightfully prevail over the weak. This competitive worldview makes values for power, dominance and social superiority salient for individuals, reflected in high levels of SDO. The model further holds that those low in Big-Five Agreeableness should be more sensitive to signs of competition and risks for exploitation in their social environment (Sibley & Duckitt, 2008). Therefore, those low in Agreeableness should increasingly develop a competitive social worldview, which in turn leads to higher levels of SDO.

Structural equation modeling has shown good data fit to this causal process model, with all hypothesized pathways clearly significant (Duckitt, 2001, Duckitt et al., 2002, Sibley and Duckitt, 2009, Sibley et al., 2010, Van Hiel et al., 2007). Longitudinal research also supports the predicted causal pathways in the model (Asbrock et al., 2010, Perry and Sibley, 2012, Sibley and Duckitt, 2010, Sibley and Duckitt, 2013b, Sibley et al., 2007). While cross-sectional and longitudinal data are suggestive of hypothesized causal associations, experimental study designs are still required to adequately support claims of causality. Moreover, experimental research is required to demonstrate causal mechanisms that have been proposed as driving observed personality effects in particular.

Considering associations between all five personality traits and dangerous and competitive worldviews, Sibley and Duckitt (2009) reported that Openness to Experience might be one of several Big-Five dimensions that predict dangerous worldview beliefs and RWA. In their structural model, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism were all significantly associated with dangerous worldview and, although Openness to Experience was most strongly related to RWA, very little of this effect occurred indirectly through dangerous worldview. Nonetheless, it has recently been argued that, in contrast with the other four personality traits, Openness to Experience may influence dangerous worldview (and hence RWA) because this trait describes variation in information processing – particularly a tendency to seize and freeze on readily available information in the social environment (Sibley and Duckitt, 2008, Sibley and Duckitt, 2013a). We detail this reasoning in the following section.

Conceptually, Openness to Experience seems to be closely related to Weber and Kruglanski’s (1994) epistemic need for cognitive closure, a tendency to seize on to the most cognitively available information and freeze on this information in the face of potentially contradictory information. Flynn (2005), for example, observed that majority group members low in Openness to Experience were less influenced by stereotype-disconfirming evidence and more likely to adhere to their negative stereotypes about minority groups. Those higher in Openness to Experience were more likely to abandon their negative stereotypes in the face of alternative evidence.

Discussing their HEXACO model of personality structure, Ashton and Lee (2007) argued that levels of Openness to Experience reflect variation in a tendency toward pursuing idea-related endeavors – such as learning, imagining and thinking. This functional definition emphasizes the possible evolutionary costs and benefits of Openness to Experience. Ashton and Lee (2007) proposed that Openness to Experience should have been beneficial for our ancestors to the extent that it resulted in material and social gains for the individual and their group, but would also expend energy and time, and increase exposure to social and environmental risks. The costs and benefits of Openness to Experience should be different in different ecological niches. This should contribute to variation at the individual level (Ashton & Lee, 2007).

Sibley and Duckitt (2013a) proposed two lines of evidence supporting a cognitive processing perspective of Openness to Experience and social worldview formation. First, as mentioned, Openness to Experience is similar in many regards to Webster and Kruglanski’s (1994) epistemic need for cognitive closure. Studies have demonstrated that a need for closure is strongly and consistently related to different forms of prejudice (e.g., Cornelis and Van Hiel, 2006, Dhont et al., 2011, Roets and Van Hiel, 2006, Roets and Van Hiel, 2011; Dhont, Roets, & Van Hiel, 2011; Van Hiel, Pandelaere, & Duriez, 2004). Many of these studies also demonstrated that therelationship is mediated by RWA. Second, Sibley and Duckitt (2013a) highlighted a tendency observed in previous studies for individuals to cluster with others similar in their degree of Openness to Experience at both an interpersonal and intergroup level – this is not the case for the other Big-Five personality dimensions however. On this basis, Sibley and Duckitt (2013a, p. 173) argued that Openness to Experience should predict dangerous worldview beliefs (and subsequently RWA) because closed-minded people “identify with the existing social order as it provides a normative referent for existing social values and the way things should be.”

This cognitive bias remains to be demonstrated with an experimental manipulation of normative stereotype information, however. Here, we test the function of Openness to Experience in the formation of dangerous worldviews by examining whether this personality trait reflects a tendency to seize onto information suggesting the social world is dangerous (anchoring) and to make subsequent estimations about danger levels consistent with this information (adjustment). We describe this specific form of cognitive heuristic below.

Tversky and Kahneman (1974) defined their anchoring heuristic as a response bias in which “different starting points yield different estimates, which are biased toward the initial values” (p. 1128). The extent of this bias varies across individuals, and a number of individual difference factors affecting anchoring have been identified (see Furnham & Boo, 2011 for a recent review). Demonstrating a classic anchoring effect related to Openness to Experience, McElroy and Dowd (2007), for example, asked some people to estimate whether the length of the Mississippi River was greater than or less than 200 miles and others whether it was greater or less than 20,000 miles. Higher levels of Openness to Experience led to longer estimates in the high-anchor (20,000 miles) condition and shorter estimates in the low-anchor condition (200 miles) relative to lower levels of this personality trait, presumably as open-minded individuals were more amenable to new information (McElroy & Dowd, 2007).

Another line of reasoning, however, suggests that it is rather the relatively closed-minded that are most susceptible to anchoring (Flynn, 2005, Kruglanski and Webster, 1996). The mechanism by which Openness to Experience operates appears to be the tendency for individuals low in Openness to Experience to seize on the most readily available information (typically normative majority-group values) and then freeze on this information in the face of alternative or disconfirming information (Jost et al., 2003, Kruglanski and Webster, 1996).

McElroy and Dowd’s (2007) second study, this time assessing anchoring effects on estimates of the number of African nations in the United Nations, is arguably a more stereotype-relevant context as the United Nations may be seen as fostering dominant Western cultural values. Therefore, closed-minded individuals should see a greater number of African member nations as threatening to this source of stereotype-affirming hegemony. McElroy and Dowd (2007) do report a significant interaction between anchoring condition (the number of African member nations) and Openness to Experience in this study, but interpret the effect as due to differences in open-minded individuals’ estimates. The reported interaction is, however, not necessarily caused solely by the open-minded being generally more amenable to information – it is at least as likely that the interaction occurred because those low in Openness to Experience seized onto their stereotypes that there are few African nations in the United Nations and froze on these beliefs in the face of stereotype-disconfirming (and socially threatening) information.1

Taken together, these perspectives imply that the open-minded are more amenable to anchoring information that is irrelevant to normative stereotypes about danger and threat (e.g., McElroy & Dowd, 2007, Study 1). Moreover, in cases where that information is relevant to normative social stereotypes – particularly stereotypes pertaining to prejudice and authoritarian attitudes – those lower in Openness to Experience should be more amenable, and therefore more inclined to adjust their estimates of threat accordingly (e.g., Flynn, 2005).

According to the DPM, people low in Openness to Experience have developed schematized perceptions of the social world as dangerous and threatening to their way of life because corroborating information is more salient to them. The following Studies 1a and 1b present an experimental manipulation of the prevalence with which people in society would engage in a series of dangerous behaviours (i.e., how dangerous the social world is perceived to be) to examine the extent of this salience bias in participants low versus high in Openness to Experience. Extending these findings in Study 2, we will examine whether this motivational bias is specific to an intellect aspect of Openness to Experience (as opposed to an aesthetic openness aspect; see DeYoung et al., 2007, Sibley and Duckitt, 2013a).

Previous measures of social worldviews have relied on ratings of ideological statements, such as “There are many dangerous people in our society who will attack someone out of pure meanness, for no reason at all” (Duckitt et al., 2002); the use of such measures is widespread. Indeed, in a recent meta-analysis, Perry, Sibley and Duckitt (2013b) compiled results from 46 studies with more than 12,000 participants that had used this ideological-type measure of social worldviews. However, although such ideological measures provide an index of the subjective evaluation of the level of danger in the social world, they do not afford a way to easily anchor perceptions in terms of levels of danger, or measure adjustment estimates based on initial anchor values. To address this, Perry and Sibley (2010) devised the Frequency Estimation Index of Dual Social Worldviews (FEI-DSW). This new scale presents participants with a list of possible actions which others in society might conceivably enact, and asks them to “give your best guess about the percentage that would do each of the following things provided there were no apparent personal gains or losses as a result of their action. That is, the percentage of people in New Zealand that would do these things just because they could” (see Perry & Sibley, 2010 for details). The scale items and construct definitions for the FEI-DSW are presented in Table 1. Perry et al. (2013a) showed that the scale reliably overlaps with the original ideological Likert-type worldview measures, and constitutes a valid measure of dangerous and competitive social worldviews.

Using the FEI-DSW we devise a method for (a) manipulating the initial anchor information about the level of danger in society within a validated DPM framework, and then (b) assessing frequency estimates of the adjustment effect from the initial anchor. Following Tversky and Kahneman (1974), we do so by first presenting a version of the dangerous worldview items in the FEI-DSW and asking participants in one condition whether the proportion of people who would do each of the dangerous world actions listed in Table 1 was less than or greater than 5%, whereas participants in the other condition were asked whether the proportion of people who would do each action was less than or greater than 25%. Using the standard FEI-DSW, which was designed for exactly this purpose, we then assessed participants’ estimates of the actual (i.e., un-anchored) proportion of people who would perform each action.

For example, half of the participants were asked if the proportion of people in society who would “mug someone” was greater or less than 5%, whereas the other half were asked if that proportion were greater or less than 25%. When subsequently asked to estimate the true frequency of events, participants with low (versus high) Openness to Experience should be more strongly influenced by high-danger anchors and thus more inclined to adjust their estimates upwards in this condition. Relative to the condition in which participants are primed with low-danger anchors, there should be a greater difference between estimates made by those low versus high Openness to Experience in the high-danger anchor condition. Closed-minded individuals should be more prone to seize onto normative stereotype-relevant information (i.e., that society is dangerous) and then freeze on this information when making subsequent judgments because they will be more sensitive to socially threatening information as a signal of potential social cost.

Section snippets

Study 1a and 1b

If those low in Openness to Experience are more likely to hold general, schematic and stable perceptions of the social world as dangerous, this should be due to their tendency to more readily detect information corroborating these beliefs. Study 1a tested this premise by priming (i.e., anchoring) perceptions of societal danger with suggestions that the number of people who would potentially be dangerous is either (a) high or (b) low. We predicted that (a) the high-danger anchor would lead to

Study 2

Study 1 indicated that those low in Openness to Experience are more influenced by normative information that confirms schematic beliefs that the social world is characterized by high levels of danger and is thus threatening to ingroup members and their values. Consistent with the DPM, low Openness to Experience creates and maintains a schematized view of the social world as dangerous and threatening. Study 2 extends these findings by examining which specific aspect of Openness to Experience –

General Discussion

Ashton and Lee (2007, see their Table 3) argued that Openness to Experience reflects individual variation in “engagement in idea-related endeavors” providing “material and social gain (resulting from discovery).” Extending their proposition, we contend that human variation in Openness to Experience occurs because at different points in our evolutionary history it was beneficial to be either (a) sensitive to societal threats in order to defend against these or (b) open to counter-normative

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