Interhemispheric communication and the preference for attitude consistent information

ABSTRACT

The current study investigated the role of interhemispheric communication in selective exposure to information. Participants (N = 241) reported their attitude and attitude strength toward a controversial social topic, engaged in a selective exposure task, and completed the Poffenberger paradigm. As expected, participants demonstrated a moderate (d = 0.50) preference for attitude consistent information on the selective exposure task and attitude strength was a significant predictor of participants’ information search tendencies. Furthermore, faster right-to-left interhemispheric transfer was also significantly associated with an increased preference for attitude consistent information. These findings highlight the potential role of the right hemispheric processes in the detection of cognitive inconsistency and in the implementation of dissonance reduction strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Interhemispheric communication
• Poffenberger paradigm
• cognitive dissonance theory
• selective exposure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We also conducted this analysis with attitude extremity (the absolute distance between participants response and midpoint of the attitude strength scale) included as a predictor, F (4,179) = 11.80, p < .05, R² = .20. Results indicated attitude strength (β = .27, p < .05) and RHLT (β = −.17, p < .05) were significant predictors of selective exposure. However, LRHT (β = −.01, p > .05) and attitude extremity (β = .15, p > .05) were not significant predictors of selective exposure. Removal of attitude extremity was shown to have minimal influence on regression parameters and the overall patterns among variables of interest. Therefore, attitude extremity was removed to simplify results and provide a more parsimonious regression model.