ABS 081: Political Blinders: Exploring the Relationship Between Politically Motivated Reasoning and Analytical Thinking

Ariella T. Reynolds ¹ , Almos C. Molnar ¹ , Steven Sloman ¹

¹ Brown University, RI, USA

Van Wickle (2025) Volume 1, ABS 081

Introduction: Ever find yourself rushing to agree with someone just because their political beliefs match yours, only to realize you were not really thinking clearly at all? Such politically motivated reasoning may challenge our ability to think more analytically. However, whereas some studies show that scoring high on analytical thinking may reduce the effects of politically motivated reasoning, others do not. One explanation for this inconsistency may be that studies have utilized reasoning tasks that do not directly rely on analytical thinking. To minimize this difference, we deployed a politicized version of the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) to measure politically motivated reasoning and a neutral version to measure analytical thinking. We recruited participants affiliated with the Democratic and the Republican parties, and randomly assigned them to one of two conditions: (1) Democratic-belief-congruent; (2) Republican-belief-congruent. We asked each participant to rate their agreement with a public policy claim that is either Democratic- or Republican-belief-congruent, and reason through a CRT question based on this statement. All participants then answered three neutral CRT questions, which placed them into low- and high-analytical-thinking groups. We hypothesized that higher levels of agreement with the public policy claim would be negatively correlated with participants’ performance on the politicized CRT questions, especially if the participants were in the low-analytical-thinking group: If a participant’s views were strongly aligned with Democratic (or Republican) beliefs, then a CRT question matching that belief would produce an intuitive but incorrect answer; if a CRT question did not match that belief, participants would be more likely to produce a correct answer based on analytical thinking. Results lend support to that hypothesis. This research is important because it assesses whether politically motivated beliefs can interfere with analytical thinking and our ability to make correct decisions.

Methods: The data from 348 U.S. participants, both Democrats and Republicans, were included in the analyses. Participants were randomly assigned to either a Democrat- or Republican-belief-congruent condition, which was either consistent or inconsistent with participants’ prior political beliefs. For three examples, participants rated their agreement with a public policy claim and then reasoned through a politicized CRT question based on that claim. These CRT questions were designed to measure participants’ tendency to exhibit politically motivated reasoning, which might lead participants to select an intuitive but incorrect answer when it is politically agreeable. Each person then answered three neutral CRT questions, placing them into low- and high-analytical-thinking groups. We predicted that politically agreeing participants will offer intuitive but incorrect responses to the politicized CRT questions, as compared to politically disagreeing participants. Furthermore, this effect would be more pronounced for those in the low-analytical-thinking group.

Results: An independent t-test revealed a significant performance difference on the politicized CRT between politically agreeing and disagreeing participants (t(346) = 1.92, p = .028, d = 0.206, one-tailed). Politically disagreeing participants reasoned more accurately (M = 1.23, SD = 1.03) through the politicized CRT questions than politically agreeing participants (M = 1.02, SD = 1.04).
This effect was entirely driven by the participants in the low-analytical-thinking group (t(217) = 2.89, p = .002, d = 0.391; one-tailed). No such performance difference was observed with participants in the high-analytical-thinking group (t(127) = -0.15, p = .561, one-tailed).

Discussion: Politically motivated reasoning influenced participants’ responses to the politicized CRT questions and was attenuated by analytical thinking. Politically agreeing participants in the low-analytical-thinking group (but not high-analytical-thinking group) performed significantly worse than politically disagreeing participants, offering more intuitive but incorrect responses when asked to reason through belief-congruent politicized CRT questions.
The results of this study suggest that politically motivated reasoning may be due to a lack of conscious deliberation, rather than an intentional, goal-oriented choice. Future research should investigate how this bias can be mitigated (e.g., through training sessions that could support the development of analytical thinking skills).