Drawing from the theory of motivated reasoning, accuracy goals have been considered as a potential remedy for promoting democratic citizenship. Existing literature suggests that accuracy goals may foster balanced information-seeking behavior and objective processing of political information. However, previous work has yielded mixed results. In light of this uncertain role of accuracy goals, this study suggests that several indicators of abilities – news literacy and cognitive sophistication – are prerequisites for accuracy goals to promote unbiased and even-handed reasoning of information. For this, I conducted two online experiments. Results from Study 1 show that news literacy and cognitive sophistication did not enable accuracy-driven individuals to choose information from credible sources or counter-attitudinal information. Findings from Study 2 reveal that even when individuals were cognitively sophisticated, accuracy goals did not lead to favorable evaluations of information supported by strong evidence or pro-attitudinal information. I discuss the implications of the results for the role of accuracy goals.
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