Inconsistent yet unyielding: How contradictory beliefs resist interventions and strategies that enable it

To better understand how inconsistent beliefs persist and whether the tendency to endorse them (labeled doublethink) is malleable, we conducted four preregistered studies and a qualitative follow-up (total N = 1320 Serbian participants). We first found that doublethink was independently predicted by both superficial information processing style and lack of ability to spot contradictions. We next tested three progressively more direct interventions to reduce doublethink, all unsuccessful - first one increased sensitivity to contradictions in irrelevant material, second pushed respondents to reconcile pairs of provided inconsistent beliefs; third made them cross-reference their own inconsistent beliefs. When asked to elaborate their inconsistencies in semi-structured interviews, respondents did not evaluate them negatively, instead they employed circumvention strategies - attributing incompatibility to the response format or diluting content of the claims (e.g., adding logical conditions). Although these strategies are not irrational per se, they might enable moral relativization, double standards or incompatible expectations from others.