Direct replications of Ottati et al. (2015): The earned dogmatism effect occurs only with some manipulations of expertise

The Earned Dogmatism Hypothesis is that social norms entitle experts to behave in a close-minded fashion, and therefore that manipulations which increase perceived expertise reduce open-minded cognition. This manuscript reports direct replications of three key experiments reported by Ottati et al. 2015 in this journal in support of the Earned Dogmatism Hypothesis. Consistent with the original findings, it was found that dogmatic behavior is considered substantially more appropriate for experts relative to novices (d = 0.45 [0.35, 0.55] over all replications and original study). In addition, it was confirmed that when participants envision themselves as experts they predict they will be more close-minded (d = − 0.54 [− 0.64, − 0.44]). Unfortunately, replications involving manipulation of expertise through task difficulty showed little to no effect on open-minded cognition (d = 0.00 [− 0.21, 0.21] for easy/difficult recall task; d = − 0.02 [− 0.21, 0.17] for easy/difficult trivia task). The balance of evidence suggests that the Earned Dogmatism Hypothesis is currently well-supported only for prospective manipulations of expertise that require participants to predict their social behaviors. [Ottati, V., Price, E. D., Wilson, C., & Sumaktoyo, N. (2015). When self-perceptions of expertise increase closed-minded cognition: The earned dogmatism effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 61, 131-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.08.003].