The preference for attitude neutrality.

Abstract

Much research has noted people's tendency toward extremity. This work has made it clear that some people prefer to hold extreme views and might leave the impression that when biases and preferences occur, they primarily favor extremity. In contrast, in the present work, we examine the possibility that some people prefer attitudinal neutrality across two pretesting samples, three main studies, and two supplementary studies (N_total = 1,873). The preference for neutrality is distinguished from low preference for extremity, as well as from an interest in collecting balanced information. We also show that the preference for neutrality is related to a sometimes uncritical and biased pursuit of attitudinal neutrality, paralleling effects found in the attitude extremity literature. The preference for neutrality is related to dispositional attitudinal neutrality and ambivalence, political centrism, a preference for other people with neutral versus extreme views, and biased responding to messages arbitrarily framed as "moderate" versus extreme. Implications for politically polarized attitudes, persuasion, and intellectual humility are discussed. The preference for neutrality may pose a substantial challenge for creating a shared understanding of the world and addressing pressing social issues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).