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The Influence of Social Interaction on Intuitions of Objectivity and Subjectivity
Matthew Fisher1, Joshua Knobe2, Brent Strickland3
1Department of Psychology, Yale University.
Abstract:
We present experimental evidence that people's modes of social interaction influence their construal of truth. Participants who engaged in cooperative interactions were less inclined to agree that there was an objective truth about that topic than were those who engaged in a competitive interaction. Follow-up experiments ruled out alternative explanations and indicated that the changes in objectivity are explained by argumentative mindsets: When people are in cooperative arguments, they see the truth as more subjective. These findings can help inform research on moral objectivism and, more broadly, on the distinctive cognitive consequences of different types of social interaction.
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