Dogmatism and Exposure to Political Candidates

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Abstract
Formation and change of political as well as other beliefs are a function of a person's exposure to information which is subject partially to his control. He may actively seek or avoid additional information, particularly information that might be discrepant with preconceived opinions. The hypothesis was that Ss with high scores on dogmatism were less willing than Ss with low scores to attend speeches of presidential primary candidates whose views were discrepant with their own. A sample of 181 Ss was drawn from franchised university students. In a questionnaire covering a wide variety of opinions, Ss were asked to indicate agreement-disagreement with active candidates and speech attendance. An analysis using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test supported the hypothesis. The findings suggest implications for formation of beliefs about other public issues.

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