Dealing with conflicting information from multiple nonlinear texts: Effects of prior attitudes.

Highlights: [•] Prior attitudes can bias how students process information in reading and writing tasks. [•] Students with strong prior attitudes tended to move away from source texts in their essays. [•] Students with strong prior attitudes took stances in their essays. [•] Students with neutral attitudes wrote essays with more synthesis and neutral conclusions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]