LAUSR

ABSTRACT The influence of goals unrelated to accuracy – such as maintaining beliefs and attitudes consistent with one’s political identity – may undermine objective processing, enabling people to construct defenses for their own predispositions. A two-wave study is employed involving undergraduates who experienced gains in scientific reasoning ability to explore the influence of ability on reasoning about social scientific messages that reflects positively or negatively on affiliates of the two major U.S. political parties. Results suggest that although ability contributes to distinguishing strong from weak arguments, there is no evidence that ability either enhances or decreases partisan influences on research evaluation.