Young adults exhibit my-side bias when writing summaries of contradictory historical accounts, with 72% producing one-sided reports despite explicit instructions to summarize both texts¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · qualitative r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2025: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The majority of participants (72%) wrote one-sided summaries including only the own-side text, despite being explicitly instructed to summarize both texts. → Iordanou 2020

Evidence¶

Iordanou 2020¶

Iordanou, K., Kendeou, P., & Zembylas, M. (2020). Examining my-side bias during and after reading controversial historical accounts. Metacognition and Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-020-09240-w

q2 · i? · qualitative · r3

Think-aloud study of 39 Greek-Cypriot young adults reading own-side and other-side historical accounts of the 1974 Cyprus events. The article reports that "only 28% of the participants included information from both texts" while 72% wrote one-sided reports.

"In the Written Summary, only 28% of the participants included information from both texts – two-sided report. The majority of the participants, 72% provided a summary only of the Greek-Cypriot historian's text, which was consistent with their prior knowledge – one-sided report, despite the fact that they had been explicitly instructed to provide a summary of both texts."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Participants with evaluativist epistemic beliefs are more likely to write two-sided reports than those with absolutist or multiplist epistemic beliefs — related
• Cognitive processing differs by text type: participants engaged in more epistemic processing, meta-comprehension, and coherence-based processing when reading the other-side text than the own-side text — related
• Participants' prior knowledge about the historical event was entirely consistent with their own ethnic group's narrative, with none providing an alternative interpretation — related
• Emotions reported during think-aloud reading were mostly negative (anger, sadness) for both texts, in contrast to positive questionnaire-reported emotions toward the other ethnic group — related
• External strategy use affects comprehension of relations among controversial texts, according to the article's title statement — related