In Search of Vivid Deliberation or Reinforcing Echo? A Three-Study Project on the Psychological Basis of Individuals’ Selective Exposure and Selective Avoidance Tendencies in Political Conversations with ChatGPT

The increasing use of Large Language Models (LLMs) has the potential to shift public discourse to private human-AI interactions, with potentially tremendous consequences: Biases and optimization of LLMs, combined with users’ biases like selective exposure and avoidance, may foster reinforcing conversations, exacerbating polarization in political contexts. Therefore, understanding how individuals engage with LLMs and its psychological basis is crucial.Across three online studies, we examined selective exposure and avoidance in political interactions with ChatGPT, alongside individual differences variables like preexisting views on topics like immigration, Intellectual Humility (IH), and Need for Cognitive Closure (NfCC). Study 1 (N = 508, N = 533) investigated participants’ prompts to ChatGPT. Experimental Study 2 (N = 970) examined participants’ reactions to ChatGPT responses congruent, incongruent, or balanced relative to their preexisting views. Experimental Study 3 (N = 495) investigated participants’ selection of congruent and incongruent arguments from ChatGPT preview responses under different reasoning conditions.Results show limited evidence of selective exposure and no selective avoidance in prompts (Study 1). ChatGPT responses incongruent with participants’ preexisting views were rated as least credible and increased seeking congruent information, aka selective exposure (Study 2). Further, participants selected more arguments congruent than incongruent with their views, indicating selective exposure (Study 3). Across studies, IH was related to openness to diverse information, independent of (in)congruency. NfCC and reasoning were inconsistently related to selective exposure (and avoidance). These findings highlight the prevalence of selective exposure in political interactions with ChatGPT. To better understand its psychological basis, further investigations are needed.