Inconsistent yet unyielding: Persistence of contradictory beliefs and strategies for their reconciliation.
To better understand how inconsistent beliefs persist and whether the tendency to endorse them (labelled doublethink) is malleable, we conducted five preregistered studies and a qualitative follow‐up (total N = 1635 Serbian participants). We first found and replicated that doublethink was robustly r...
| Published in: | British Journal of Psychology Vol. 116; no. 4; pp. 1050 - 1076 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Nov2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=188606582&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 188606582 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00071269 BJP jtl: British Journal of Psychology issn: 00071269 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Nov2025 vid: 116 iid: 4 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 188606582 10.1111/bjop.70002 ppf: 1050 ppct: 26 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: C – @attributes: type: P size: 1.4MB tig: atl: Inconsistent yet unyielding: Persistence of contradictory beliefs and strategies for their reconciliation. aug: au: Petrović, Marija B. Žeželj, Iris affil: LIRA Lab, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia su: Serbia Qualitative research Culture Executive function Content analysis Interviewing Cognitive dissonance Psychology Students Cognition Self-perception Bar codes Statistical correlation Research funding Cronbach's alpha Data analysis Research evaluation Two-way analysis of variance Descriptive statistics Surveys Experimental design Research Research methodology Statistics Theory Thought & thinking Regression analysis sug: subj: Qualitative research Culture Executive function Content analysis Interviewing Cognitive dissonance Psychology Students Cognition Self-perception Serbia Bar codes Statistical correlation Research funding Cronbach's alpha Data analysis Research evaluation Two-way analysis of variance Descriptive statistics Surveys Experimental design Research Research methodology Statistics Theory Thought & thinking Regression analysis keyword: doublethink inconsistent beliefs overcoming contradictions superficial information processing thinking styles doublethink inconsistent beliefs overcoming contradictions superficial information processing thinking styles ab: To better understand how inconsistent beliefs persist and whether the tendency to endorse them (labelled doublethink) is malleable, we conducted five preregistered studies and a qualitative follow‐up (total N = 1635 Serbian participants). We first found and replicated that doublethink was robustly related to both a more intuitive, superficial information processing style and a lack of ability to spot contradictions (r =.20 and r =.21, ps <.001). We next tested three progressively more direct interventions to reduce doublethink, all unsuccessful – the first one tried to increase sensitivity to contradictions in irrelevant material, the second pushed respondents to reconcile pairs of newly provided inconsistent beliefs and the third made them cross‐reference their own inconsistent beliefs. When asked to elaborate on their inconsistencies in semi‐structured interviews, respondents did not evaluate them negatively, but instead employed circumvention strategies – attributing incompatibility to the response format or diluting the content of the claims. The most commonly used strategy was to rely on adding additional logical conditions to the beliefs (in 34% of the cases). Although these strategies could reflect rational belief safeguarding mechanisms, they also might allow for moral relativization, double standards or incompatible expectations from others (e.g. posing irreconcilable standards for minority groups). pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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