Personal Issue Importance and Motivated-Reasoning Goals for Pro- and Counterattitudinal Exposure: A Moderated Mediation Model of Motivations and Information Selectivity on Elaborative Reasoning

Abstract

This study draws on an experiment combined with Web behavior-tracking data to understand the roles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, including personal issue importance and motivated-reasoning goals, in influencing people to seek pro- and counterattitudinal information and how this information selectivity in turn affects elaborative reasoning. Findings suggest that proattitudinal exposure mediates the relationship between personal issue importance and generating rationales for one’s own viewpoint on the issue, while counterattitudinal exposure mediates the path from personal issue importance to generating rationales for not only oppositional but also one’s own viewpoint. This result highlights the significant role of counterattitudinal exposure in enhancing deliberative democracy. However, the moderated mediation analyses further indicate that the indirect paths through counterattitudinal exposure only occur for those who are highly motivated by accuracy goals to search for information. Implications for the functioning of deliberative democracy are discussed.