Self-construal, mood, nationality and openness to evidence against the afterlife

There is considerable evidence that people process information in a manner that favours prior beliefs, and that they are resistant to evidence against those beliefs. People who believed in an afterlife were recruited, and they all indicated their level of confidence. This study analyzed the effect of self-construal, mood, and nationality on openness to belief-contradicting evidence. Our study used a 2 (self-construal: rational vs fallible) X 2 (mood: positive vs negative) X 2 (nationality: Western vs non-Western) factorial design. Self-construal was manipulated through the use of questionnaires, while mood was manipulated with videos. All participants were exposed to arguments that contradicted their beliefs, and they indicated how convincing the arguments were. Their ratings of the arguments were our measure of openness to belief-contradicting evidence. There was a strong negative correlation between initial belief confidence and ratings of the arguments. Participants who were more confident in their beliefs tended to find the arguments unconvincing, but participants with less confidence tended to find the arguments convincing. Self-construal did not produce significant differences in ratings of the arguments, and neither did the mood manipulation. There was also no significant difference in average ratings between Westerners and non-Westerners. However, there was an unexpected interaction between nationality and self-construal. A fallible self-construal led to significantly lower ratings of the arguments for Westerners, while it led to higher ratings of the arguments for non-Westerners. Possible explanations of this finding are discussed, including identity threat and differences is self-serving bias.