“And the Next Thing You Know . . .”: Ideological Differences in Slippery Slope Thinking

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) contend that a small, innocuous change will lead to cascading negative consequences. Although SSAs are common in political discourse, they have received little empirical attention in this context. In 15 studies (including samples from four countries and a study of natural language usage on the social media site Reddit), we examine who may be most prone to slippery slope thinking and why people in general may engage in such thinking. We consider whether individuals of different political ideologies exhibit different degrees of support for SSAs. We test three competing hypotheses that it is (a) political extremists, (b) political liberals, or (c) political conservatives that more strongly endorse SSAs. We consistently find that conservatives endorse SSAs more due to ideological differences in intuitive thinking. We additionally find evidence of these ideological differences in social media behavior, and that slippery slope thinking has consequences for punitive attitudes.