Central attitudes in political belief systems are more resistant to change than peripheral attitudes, but not necessarily less amenable to persuasive attempts

Theories of political belief systems and inter-attitude structure predict that central attitudes in a belief system will be more resistant to change than peripheral attitudes. The theories hold that by way of their interconnections to many other attitudes, central attitudes in political belief systems are more likely to be held in place by their connections than peripheral attitudes. We formalize this prediction using simulations (Studies 1 and 2). Methodological challenges have previously prevented empirical tests of the prediction at the appropriate, individual level of analysis. We conduct such empirical tests using panel (Studies 3-5, combined N = 2,731) and experimental studies (Studies 4 & 5, combined N = 2,195) of U.S. Americans. We find that central attitudes in political belief systems are more stable over time (Studies 3-5), and elicit more negative cognitions, emotions, and evaluations of argument quality when targeted with a persuasive message (Studies 4 & 5). These results are consistent with the prediction that central attitudes are more resistant to change than peripheral attitudes. Notably, central attitudes were similarly persuadable as peripheral attitudes. These findings both confirm the importance of attitude position in the belief system for attitude stability and highlight the possible need for theory revisions to capture the full pattern of results.