Social vigilantism and reported use of strategies to resist persuasion

•Social vigilantism predicts resistance strategy use when attitudes are challenged.•SV predicts resistance strategy use beyond argumentativeness and attitude strength.•SV predicts resistance strategy use for issues of both high and low importance.

We assessed the unique contribution of social vigilantism (SV; the tendency to impress and propagate one’s “superior” beliefs onto others to correct others’ more “ignorant” opinions) in predicting participants’ reported use of strategies to resist persuasion. Consistent with hypotheses, SV was uniquely and positively associated with reported use of several resistance strategies (including counterarguing, impressing views, social validation, negative affect, and source derogation) in response to challenges above and beyond the effects of argumentativeness, attitude strength, and topic (in Study 1, the issue was abortion; in Study 2, the war in Iraq or the constitutional rights of pornographers). These studies indicate that social vigilantism is an important individual difference variable in the process of attitude resistance.