Facilitating and Hindering Accurate Perceptions of Argument Strength: The Effects of Intergroup Bias and Intellectual Humility

Abstract

Intellectual humility (IH), the awareness that one’s beliefs could be wrong, is lacking in U.S. political discourse. Guided by the elaboration likelihood model, we conducted an experiment (N = 308) examining people’s ability to differentiate objectively strong (versus weak) political arguments. We explore whether IH influences the effects of in-/outgroup sources on perceived argument strength. Results revealed people high in IH were better able to differentiate strong from weak arguments (nonsignificant with covariates in the model (p = .07), but significant without covariates). Additionally, participants evaluated ingroup messages as stronger than outgroup messages, an effect not moderated by IH.

Keywords:

• Argument Strength
• Elaboration Likelihood Model
• Intellectual Humility
• Intergroup Theory; 
• Partisanship

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support our findings are publicly accessible at https://bit.ly/3NoCf3U.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Montez

Daniel Montez (MA, Brigham Young University) is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication at the University of Arizona. His research interests focus on political communication, forms of incivility in political deliberation, trolling, and media effects.

Jake Harwood

Jake Harwood (PhD, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) is a Professor of Communication at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on intergroup communication with a particular focus on age groups, and on the role of music in intergroup relations.