Conservatives Are More Likely To Share Fake News — But Only If They Are Low In Conscientiousness

By Emma Young Why do people share fake news? All kinds of studies have looked into what encourages it, and which personal attributes play a role. As the authors of a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General point out, multiple studies have found that political conservatives are relatively more likely to disseminate false news than those on the political left. However, their new work finds that this is an over-simplification — that the link is “largely driven” by conservatives who are also low in conscientiousness. This is an important finding for a few reasons. On the upside, it’s a far less politically polarising message. On the downside, this group does not seem to be receptive to the main identified way of stopping fake news from spreading. Asher Lawson and Hemant Kakkar at Duke University ran eight online studies on a total of 4,642 US-based participants. In the first, the participants were given 12 reputable and 12 fake news COVID-19 stories from websites. Participants who identified as conservative were, as expected, more likely to say that they would share fake stories. However, further analysis revealed that this was true for conservatives who were low in conscientiousness, but not for those who were high in conscientiousness (highly conscientious people are those who are more diligent and better at controlling impulses). A second study found the same pattern of results for political stories unrelated to Covid-19. Earlier rese...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Media Personality Political Source Type: blogs