Your Overall Receptiveness Score:

The graphs below plot your score against a large dataset of other people who have taken the survey. You can see how your score compares to others with different characteristics.

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What does it mean to be receptive?

People who are more receptive are more willing to engage with information that opposes their beliefs on important, hot-button topics. For example, they might be more willing to read news or social media from the other side, or have conversations with people they disagree with. More receptive people are also more willing to think hard about the opposing perspective, instead of quickly dismissing it. This often leads to having a more favorable opinion of those on the other side and the arguments they make. Importantly, being more receptive does not mean that you are willing to change your mind, or compromise. It simply means that you are ready to seriously consider the arguments on both sides of an issue.

Components of Receptiveness

Receptiveness to opposing views is made up of four separate components: Emotional equanimity, Curiosity toward opposing views, Respect toward opponents, and Tolerance of taboo issues. Read below to learn about what each component means and your score relative to other people.

Emotional Equanimity

This component of the scale measures the extent to which you can maintain emotional equanimity when you interact with people who disagree with you. In our work, we find that most people report feeling anger, disgust and frustration, not insecurity and anxiety. The more negative emotions you feel the less receptive you are, and the lower your score on this component will be.

Intellectual Curiosity

Some people are genuinely curious about why those who disagree with them believe what they believe. They find it interesting and rewarding to talk to and read information from "the other side". Being higher on this subscale means you are more receptive.

Respect Toward Opponents

Most people have negative opinions of those who disagree with them on important issues. We think that opponents hold their beliefs out of selfishness and stupidity, and are out to mislead those who are less informed. People who have higher receptiveness scores respect those on the other side more.

Tolerance of Taboo Issues

Everyone has some beliefs that are just not up for debate. People who are less receptive think that many topics are dangerous and should not be discussed in the public sphere.

Receptiveness by Demographic Group

Age

Receptiveness is negatively correlated with age. In other words, older people tend to be a little less receptive. This graph plots your level of receptiveness against the average level of receptiveness for your age category.

Political Affiliation

In most of our studies we do not find a relationship between receptiveness and political affiliation. In other words, Liberals are roughly as receptive as Conservatives. This makes our scale less "politically biased" than other related measures. However, people on the political extremes tend to be less receptive. The graph below plots your level of receptiveness against the average level of receptiveness for other people with your political ideology.

Level of Education

We have not found a relationship between receptiveness and education. In other words, highly educated people are not typically more or less receptive than their less educated counter-parts. More educated people often score higher on measures of cognitive processing, such as Need for Cognition, but they still prefer to think about the arguments for their own side rather than opposing arguments.