Small first transgressions, dramatic next effects: Slippery slope thinking explained by personality, epistemic motivation, and ideology

Saroglou, Vassilis [UCL] Uzarevic, Filip [UCL]

“Decriminalizing soft drugs will lead to an opium addicted society”. Slippery slope arguments are partly irrational thoughts where a premise (e.g., action or reform) is rejected as bad since it prepares similar cases with much more negative further consequences. Related psychological research is sparse. Moreover, a positive version of the slippery slope thinking may exist: “smallest progress will transform the world”. In two European cultural contexts, UK and France, we investigated, in 1,924 participants, slippery slope thinking (negative and positive), big five personality traits, need for closure, religiosity, spirituality, and socio-demographics. Negative slippery slope thinking was predicted by religiosity, need for closure, Conscientiousness, low Openness, and low education. Positive slippery slope thinking was predicted by Agreeableness, spirituality, Openness, though again need for closure. Personality, epistemic motivation, and existential ideologies uniquely fuel the “small causes, big effects” thinking, but different traits and ideologies predict catastrophic versus utopian versions of it.