Training Track: Applied Social

Lab: Social Cognition and Attitudes Lab   

Advisor: Victor Ottati, Ph.D. 

Office: Coffey Hall LL27

My research explores the social cognitive and neurological underpinnings of open-mindedness and political ideology. 

 

The Dogmatism of Decent: How Open-Minded Cognition Influences Protest Attitudes

 

While protesters are often thought of and portrayed as dogmatic actors on the political stage, research has yet to empirically investigate the cognitive processes and styles of protesters. While previous research has investigated how open-minded cognition relates to political party and ideology, its relationship to political activism has remained under studied. This study used a between subject’s design to determine how priming system rejection may affect open-minded cognition and protest attitudes. The sample of 450 participants recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is based off a power analysis with small to medium effect sizes (r²=0.25) and a power of .95. Using SurveyGizmo software, participants were randomly assigned to either a system rejection or a control condition. Following this, participants completed measures of their political open-mindedness, willingness to participate in two forms of protest, anger towards the government, and demographics. The results explore the varying ways open-minded cognition affects models of political activism and provides early evidence for how open-mindedness may directly affect political activism.

 

Dr. Victor Ottati & Dr. Scott Tindale