Slippery slope arguments, that small actions have severe consequences, are common; they predicted intolerance of outgroup freedoms; also, those beliefs predict intolerance of debated behaviors

On a Slippery Slope to Intolerance: Individual difference in slippery slope beliefs predict outgroup negativity. Levi Adelman et al. Journal of Research in Personality, August 3 2021, 104141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104141

Highlights

• Slippery slope arguments, that small actions have severe consequences, are common.

• The likelihood of believing these arguments reflects an individual difference.

• A measure of slippery slope beliefs predicts negative intergroup attitudes.

• Slippery slope beliefs predict agreement with real-world slippery slope arguments.

Abstract: Slippery slope beliefs capture the idea that a non-problematic action will lead to unpreventable and harmful outcomes. While this idea has been examined in legal and philosophical literatures, there has been no psychological research into the individual propensity to hold slippery slope beliefs. Across five studies and six samples (combined N = 5,974), we developed and tested an individual difference measure of slippery slope beliefs, finding that it predicted intolerance of outgroup freedoms above and beyond key demographic and psychological predictors (Studies 1-2 and 5). We also found that slippery slope beliefs predict intolerance of debated behaviors in two countries (Study 3), and that it predicted agreement with real-world slippery slope examples across the political spectrum (Studies 4-5).

Keywords: Slippery SlopeToleranceOutgroupIndividual difference

Check also Perpetrator Religion and Perceiver’s Political Ideology Affect Processing and Communication of Media Reports of Violence. Samia Habib, Levi Adelman, Bernhard Leidner, Shaheen Pasha, and Razvan Sibii. Social Psychology, July 1, 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/07/interpretation-of-reports-about-crimes.html

1. Slippery Slope Beliefs

The academic literature has primarily focused on slippery slope reasoning as a logical and philosophical investigation of (flawed) argumentations in which a first action is considered to lead to unacceptable consequences, such as by distinguishing the logical, empirical and apocalyptic types of slippery slope argumentation (e.g., Collins and Hahn, 2018; Schauer, 1998; van der Burg, 1998; Volokh, 2003; Walton, 2015). In psychology, very little research has been conducted on slippery slope beliefs or argumentation. In one article, Corner and colleagues (2011) investigated the psychological underpinning of this form of thinking, and found that people’s agreement with slippery slope arguments rests on how similar they consider the first (innocuous) action and the proposed (unacceptable) final consequence. Other empirical research (Haigh et al., 2016) suggests that people who hear slippery slope arguments make inferences about what the person making the argument believes about the initial action, and that these inferences can affect the persuasiveness of the slippery slope message.

In contrast to this focus on reasoning processes, the aim of the current research is to investigate individual differences in general slippery slope beliefs: the tendency to think that small or unobjectionable actions or events will inevitably lead to negative consequences. To our knowledge, no research has considered slippery slope beliefs as a general individual difference variable and investigated how these beliefs may relate to outgroup intolerance. Yet, individuals are likely to differ in their general propensity to see social events in terms of a slippery slope (Volokh, 2003; Walton, 2015). For example, when presented with a proposal regarding government spying on suspected terrorists or criminals, some individuals might be more likely to believe that if the government is permitted to spy on known criminals or terror suspects (unobjectionable action), it will end up using that power in an authoritarian manner to spy on ordinary citizens or political opponents (harmful consequence). These individuals will be inclined to perceive this as a likely chain of events because they in general tend to believe that an unobjectionable or a small action is a first step on an inevitable road to disaster (e.g., Corner et al., 2011, Volokh, 2003; Walton, 2015). Furthermore, the belief in this tendency for unobjectionable or small actions to lead to harmful outcomes goes beyond mistrust of other individuals in that it reflects how the world tends to work, beyond malevolent actors. It is the individual difference in general slippery slope beliefs that is examined here.

In introducing the concept of slippery slope beliefs, it is important to consider theoretically meaningful criterion measures. Specifically, as slippery slope beliefs involve the fear that any ground given up will result in the loss of a lot more, this may relate with the well-established concept of generalized trust for others (e.g., Delhey et al., 2011). Further, slippery slope beliefs reflect a feeling of the inability to control the consequences of small decisions and believing that they will inevitably lead to uncontrollable consequences, and therefore might reflect a weak sense of personal control (Lachman and Weaver, 1998). Alternatively, it might be that slippery slope beliefs, which usually involve believing in a catastrophic outcome, reflects the same irrationality of conspiratorial thinking (Brotherton et al., 2013, Van Prooijen et al., 2015). We also considered whether slippery slope beliefs might reflect a propensity to be less focused on the immediate present (and more focused on the future), by having a pessimistic outlook on life (optimism versus pessimism; Chang, 2001), or by thinking of all the potential (negative) consequences of present actions rather than the current unproblematic nature of these actions (Zhang et al., (2013)/). Based on our expectation that the slippery slope construct is a distinct individual belief, we predicted that slippery slope beliefs are empirically distinct from these other constructs. Using six large scale data sets from two countries, we tested this expectation by examining various measurement models in confirmatory factor analyses, by investigating the correlations between similar but distinct concepts, and by assessing the unique predictive value of slippery slope beliefs on intolerance.

1.1. Outgroup Intolerance

As illustrated in the quotes opening this article, one relevant risk of slippery slope beliefs is the reduced willingness to tolerate differences. This may be because slippery slope reflects a sense of threat to the status quo, which drives outgroup negativity and intolerance. Research on intergroup threat has demonstrated that various forms of threat predict prejudice toward many different outgroups and across different cultural contexts (e.g., Riek et al., 2006, Stephan et al., 2009). Given the importance of perceived threat in generating outgroup negativity, the risk of slippery slope beliefs become apparent. Individuals who are more susceptible to slippery slope thinking are more likely to consider a cascade of dangers as reasonably arising from accepting relatively benign outgroup practices and cultural expressions. As such, even these benign practices and cultural expressions can raise the specter of threatening outcomes leading to intolerance toward other groups.

We further consider the role of slippery slope beliefs for outgroup intolerance in relation to political orientation. Forms of slippery slope reasoning might be more common among conservatives than liberals because conservatives tend to score higher on measures of personal needs for structure and order, rigidity and cognitive closure, and focus more on respect for tradition and retaining the status quo (e.g., Jost et al., 2003, Jost, 2017). However, general slippery slope beliefs do not only have to characterize the psychology of the right, but might have a broader meaning and be used both by the political left and right (see opening quotes), in line with the ideological-conflict hypothesis (Brandt et al., 2014, Crawford and Brandt, 2020) and research on bipartisan bias (Ditto et al., 2019). We examine in all six samples the relation between slippery slope beliefs and political orientation, and then test whether these beliefs are uniquely associated with outgroup intolerance over and above other psychological constructs. Additionally, we examine the relevance of individual differences in general slippery slope beliefs for evaluating the possible negative implications of various real-world scenarios that either the political right or the political left is particularly concerned about. By testing whether slippery slope beliefs are associated with societal developments that align with or against ideological worldviews, we are able to examine whether these beliefs are a general phenomenon that occurs across the political spectrum, or rather whether it is specific to the political right.

1.2. Current Research

The goal of our research was to investigate the concept of general slope beliefs and to understand how these beliefs relate to outgroup intolerance. To accomplish this, we first focused on developing a brief scale that allows for assessing general slippery slope beliefs in various contexts.

We used a three-step procedure for developing such a scale (Hahn et al., 2015, Hinkin, 1998). First, based on the theoretical literature and our conceptualization of slippery slope beliefs, we developed a pool of twelve possible items and, through consultation with peers both individually and in groups, selected six that had high face validity. In a second step, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across the six large-scale national samples to examine the clustering of the items, evaluating the fit of different factor solutions and testing for measurement equivalence across Germany and the Netherlands. Furthermore, we examined different measurement models to determine whether a slippery slope beliefs construct empirically differs from measures of generalized trust, sense of control, conspiratorial thinking, present-oriented focus, pessimism, optimism, authoritarianism, open-mindedness, and close-mindedness. Additionally, we examine whether the slippery slope measure is distinct, but related to, these constructs.

In addition to establishing the psychometric properties and empirical distinctiveness of the measure, we tested the expectation that slippery slope beliefs predict unique variance in intolerance towards cultural diversity and Muslim minorities, and with real-world examples of slippery slope arguments. Specifically, we examined whether slippery slope beliefs predicted intolerance toward minorities, above and beyond additional measures (Study 2), including political orientation (Studies 1-5), as well as status-quo conservatism and normative conformity (Study 3) as two key predispositions underlying political orientation (Jost et al., 2003). We also examined whether individual difference in general slippery slope beliefs is related to the acceptance of slippery slope reasoning about concrete societal developments that are mainly of concern for conservatives or rather for liberals (Studies 4 and 5). This allows us to examine whether slippery slope beliefs are specifically relevant for the political right or rather is used across the political spectrum.