Coping with accountability cross-pressures: Low-effort evasive tactics andhigh-effort quests for complex compromises

The current study explores two classes of strategies of coping with account ability: low-cognitive-effort decision-evasion tactics (buckpassing, procra stination and exiting the situation) and high-cognitive-effort attempts to craft integratively complex compromises among conflicting perspectives. Som e participants read weak arguments on one side of the free trade issue and strong arguments on the other side, and some participants read strong argum ents for both the pro- and anti-free trade positions. They then expected th eir own views to be anonymous or expected to justify those views to a pro-f ree trade audience or to both a pro- and an anti-free trade audience. Parti cipants were most integratively complex when they read strong arguments fro m each side and were accountable to conflicting constituencies (maximum int rapsychic and int,;personal conflict). Participants also relied on low-effo rt decision-evasion tactics to escape accountability and were willing to us e escape strategies demanding relatively more time and energy to avoid acco untability to contradictory constituencies.