With contemporary social movements related to civil rights, personal freedoms, and tensions in higher education institutions around academic freedom, ideological open-mindedness has become an increasingly popular research topic in recent decades. Such openness has been defined as a disposition to engage meaningfully with novel ideas that may conflict with one’s own, and to accommodate or disregard such views with delicacy, precision, and care (Cormier et al., 2026; Kwong, 2023). Findings on effective interventions to reduce ideological polarization remain limited, highlighting the need for a cohesive review. This review catalogued and analyzed findings on individual differences related to ideological open-mindedness through an exploratory research question: Are there measured individual differences (psychological and demographic variables such as personality traits, political beliefs, and gender) that relate meaningfully to ideological open-mindedness? The search process retained 152 records. Results showed associations between ideological open-mindedness and personality traits, age, gender, sexual orientation, culture, language, political standing, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, education level and type, personal past experience, competence, personal beliefs and interests, and emotional tendencies. Considering varied associations between individual characteristics and differences in ideological open-mindedness, this review serves as a guide towards better understanding this complex construct as precursor to informing effective interventions.

Background: Cognitive behavioural therapy for depression includes cognitive and behavioural techniques to target depressive symptoms. Cognitive techniques are often separated into interventions that target automatic thoughts and those that target core beliefs. Interventions that focus on core beliefs have been presented in the literature for decades. However, a consolidated review of the available contents pertaining to interventions focusing on core beliefs when treating depression has yet to be completed. Aims: This scoping review aimed to identify and define core belief techniques and describe core treatment recommendations in the treatment of major depression. Method: A literature search was completed in three databases including PsychINFO, EMBASE and Medline. The methodology followed scoping review guidelines and a thematic analysis framework. Results: The review uncovered two clusters of techniques. The first aim to identify the core beliefs and include such techniques as reviewing the historical context for underlying beliefs, the downward arrow technique, and the use of inventories. The second aim to modify core beliefs and include techniques such as examining the evidence, exploring the advantages and disadvantages of a belief, conducting a historical test, the continuum method, and using positive data logs. Specific recommendations for using each technique are also presented.