Actively Open-Minded Thinking, Bullshit Receptivity, and Susceptibility to Framing: Evaluating the Dual-Process Account in North America and Bulgaria

Abstract

The framing effect occurs when different presentations of the same problem lead to predictably different preferences. The dual-process framework of higher cognition assumes that the effect violates rational principles, but alternative accounts and recent evidence have contested this interpretation. Contributing to this debate, we tested the dual-process assumption by investigating associations between susceptibility to framing and the willingness and ability to think in line with rational norms, conceptualized as actively open-minded thinking and pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity. We conducted two online studies among North American (N = 259) and Bulgarian (N = 248) university students and administered several framing problems within subjects, presumably a necessary condition for the associations to appear. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that susceptibility to framing was associated with decreased actively open-minded thinking and increased bullshit receptivity in both sites. Exploratory multi-group analyses demonstrated partial strong invariance and showed that the findings generalize across both sites in terms of direction and partially in terms of magnitude. These results broadly support the dual-process account of the framing effect. Our study further contributes to adapting existing measures to a novel setting and expanding the findings across borders and populations.

Generalizability, Replicability, and New Insights Derived From Registered Reports Within Understudied Populations

“…Within a registered report, the authors find that the new scale on which they report approximates a one-factor structure and among other results shows mostly consistent relations with conspiracist mentality, beliefs in conspiracy theories, and rational and intuitive thinking styles, across two samples. Similar to Rachev and colleagues (2022), this study exemplifies how preregistration of model fit evaluation contributes to our robust understanding of phenomena and their replicability across samples. In their measure of belief in conspiracy theories, the authors included items specific to the Serbian context.…”

“…Rachev and colleagues (2022) examine whether the risky-choice and attribute framing effect, describing variation in preference under different presentations of the same problem (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981), occurs and shows similar relations to the willingness and ability to think in line with rational norms across two samples. The willingness and ability to think in line with rational norms were represented by two constructs; namely, actively open-minded thinking (Haran et al, 2013) and bullshit receptivity (e.g., Ilić & Damnjanović, 2021).…”

“…In acting as guest editors for this special issue in the European Journal of Psychological Assessment, we have learned a great deal about how cross-cultural research projects can contribute to our understanding of psychological assessment, and about the role that registered reports can play therein. As Rachev and colleagues (2022) highlight with regard to the central construct in their study, it is sometimes implicitly assumed that psychological processes and the measures aimed at capturing their work independently of socio-cultural contexts. This is definitely not the case.…”

A reassessment of the Resistance to Framing scale

“…Our preregistered target sample size was 250 complete responses per site after excluding responses categorized as duplicate, inattentive, or too fast (see Data exclusions). The data were collected as part of a larger research project to evaluate the dual-process account in Bulgaria and North America (Rachev et al, 2022). The sample size has been determined based on the fit and misfit of the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models and expected effect sizes used within this larger project.…”