Abstract
Every day, thousands of polls, surveys, and rating
scales are employed to elicit the attitudes of humankind. Given the ubiquitous
use of these instruments, it seems we ought to have firm answers to what is
measured by them, but unfortunately we do not. To help remedy this situation,
we present a novel approach to investigate the nature of attitudes. We created
a self-transforming paper survey of moral opinions, covering both foundational
principles, and current dilemmas hotly debated in the media. This survey used a
magic trick to expose participants to a reversal of their previously stated
attitudes, allowing us to record whether they were prepared to endorse and
argue for the opposite view of what they had stated only moments ago. The
result showed that the majority of the reversals remained undetected, and a
full 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes. In
addition, participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments
supporting the opposite of their original position. These results suggest a
dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes, and indicates a
clear role for self-attribution and post-hoc rationalization in attitude formation
and change.
