Is logical reasoning an antidote or a poison for political disagreement?

Star Trek’s Spock would not be surprised: People are “illogical.” New research exploring American liberals and conservatives shows that regardless of political affiliation, tribal instincts kick in and people’s ability to think logically suffers when it comes to arguments related to their political belief systems. When confronted with the unsound reasoning of opposing groups, people become better able to identify flawed logic.

The research was recently published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

In their first study, the researchers studied ideological belief bias – the tendency to judge logical arguments based on the believability of their conclusions rather than whether or not the arguments’ premises support the conclusions – effects among 924 liberals and conservatives from YourMorals.org. Visitors to the site evaluated the logical soundness of classically structured logical syllogisms supporting liberal or conservative beliefs. Of 16 syllogisms, half were structured as sound arguments, and half unsound.

On average, participants correctly judged 73% of the syllogisms. But their ability to judge correctly depended on their political views.

“Liberals were better at identifying flawed arguments supporting conservative beliefs and conservatives were better at identifying flawed arguments supporting liberal beliefs,” says Anup Gampa (University of Virginia), a lead coauthor of the paper.

Source: Logical reasoning: An antidote or a poison for political disagreement?