Susceptibility to false information knows no political lines or ideological inclinations. However, according to a growing number of reports, individuals who are more predisposed to believing or spreading misinformation and disinformation often have right-aligned or right-wing political leanings or conservative ideologies. This has been observed in countries with clear right-wing and left-wing political delineation.
Inside the Information Gap: What Makes Right-Wingers or Conservatives More Vulnerable to False Information
Studies Indicating Susceptibility of Right-Wingers
A 2024 meta-analysis by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development shed light on who is most susceptible to false information online. M. Sultan et al. synthesized data from 31 experiments involving over 11500 participants and distinguished susceptibility between the ability to tell true news from false news and having a response bias
Findings revealed that Democrats are also more skeptical and showed higher discrimination ability than Republican participants. They performed better at distinguishing between fake and real news. Republicans were prone to labeling headlines as true because of their true-news bias. These suggest that political bias influences how people evaluate information.
Moreover, researchers, led by UCLA anthropology professor Daniel Fessler, published a 2017 paper that examined how political affiliation can predict reaction to false information about threats. Findings showed that conservatives were significantly more predisposed than people with liberal views to consider or accept false information about threats as credible.
The conclusion from a 2024 six-part study by University of California-Irvine researchers indicated that those with conservative leanings tend to use and spread more false information than those with liberal leanings. X. Zhu and C. Penchmann note that these tendencies are greater during periods of political polarization or when there are issues underscoring political divide.
A content analysis on the social media platform X by T. Renault, M. Mosleh, and D. G. Rand, which used crowd-sourced assessment, also found that posts from Republicans were flagged as misleading more often or 2.3 times more than posts from Democrats by the Community Notes feature. This indicated partisan asymmetry in false information sharing.
Examples of False Information that Appeal to Right-Wingers
Most individuals who believe in conspiracy theories tend to have right-wing political leanings. For example, during the coronavirus pandemic, D. P. Calvillo et al. found that conservatives were more likely to perceive COVID-19 as less severe, believed that the media was exaggerating, and were worse at distinguishing real versus fake health-related headlines.
Political science professor and policy researcher M. Motta evaluated six demographically and nationally representative surveys in the U.S. His findings showed that self-identified Republicans are more likely than Democrats or Independents to believe that vaccines cause autism in children. The effect is strongly mediated by negative attitudes toward scientists.
Researchers B. Baumgaertner et al. also found conservatives are less likely to support vaccination even if the disease is present in their community. These same people also have less trust in medical experts in U.S. government agencies. M. Rabinowitz et al. also found that liberals parents were more likely to endorse pro-vaccination statements and regard them as facts.
The Carsey School of Public Policy carried out the Conspiracy versus Science Survey in 2022 and asked U.S. respondents about beliefs that include flat-earth claims, fake moon landing, and microchip implantation via vaccines, among others. Results showed that those who support Donald Trump were more likely to agree with these pseudoscientific assertions.
Explanations for the Susceptibility of Right-Wingers
Research underscored that both conservatives and liberals are prone to believing information that favors their side. Moreover, with regard to medical-related information, views against science are not exclusive to right-wingers. The degree depends on the particular issue, trust in institutions and leadership, religious underpinnings, and specific local contexts.
In their paper, which was published in 2021 in Science Advances R. K. Garrett and R. B. Bond examined the susceptibility of conservatives. They found that even liberals are also prone to accepting falsehoods. However, conservatives are more predisposed because there are more viral stories with conservative bias or that support conservative positions.
Note that the findings above also support the findings of M. Sultan et al. Data from over 11500 participants indicated that people are more inclined to believe information they had seen or heard before, even if it was false. Repeated exposure makes false claims more credible. This is why certain propaganda tactics like the firehose of falsehoods are effective.
The research of Zhu and Pechmann, which was referenced above, also discovered that Republicans were more willing to disseminate falsehoods to gain an advantage over Democrats. They are not predisposed to falsehoods by default. Their behavior is influenced by polarized situations that elevate their desire for ingroup dominance or maintain group superiority.
Researchers M. A. Lawson and H. Kakkar further noted that it is not conservatives or right-wingers in general who tend to promote false information. Their findings showed that a smaller subset of conservative groups is predisposed to disseminating falsehoods. Individuals in this subset share two psychological traits: low conscientiousness and an appetite for chaos.
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
- Baumgaertner, B., Carlisle, J. E., and Justwan, F. 2018. “The Influence of Political Ideology and Trust on Willingness to Vaccinate.” PLOS ONE. 13(1): e0191728. DOI: 1371/journal.pone.0191728
- Calvillo, D. P., Ross, B. J., Garcia, R. J. B., Smelter, T. J., and Rutchick, A. M. 2020. “Political Ideology Predicts Perceptions of the Threat of COVID-19 (and Susceptibility to Fake News About It).” Social Psychological and Personality Science. 11(8): 1119-1128. DOI: 1177/1948550620940539
- Garrett, R. K. and Bond, R. M. 2021. “Conservatives’ Susceptibility to Political Misperceptions.” Science Advances. 7(23). DOI: 1126/sciadv.abf1234
- Hamilton, L. 25 April 2022. “Conspiracy vs. Science: A Survey of U.S. Public Beliefs.” Carsey School of Public Policy. University of New Hampshire. Available online
- Lawson, M. A., and Kakkar, H. 2022. “Of Pandemics, Politics, and Personality: The Role of Conscientiousness and Political Ideology in the Sharing of Fake News.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 151(5): 1154-1177. DOI: /1037/xge0001120
- Motta, M. 2021. “Republicans, Not Democrats, Are More Likely to Endorse Anti-Vaccine Misinformation.” American Politics Research. 49(5): 428-438. DOI: 1177/1532673×211022639
- Rabinowitz, M., Latella, L., Stern, C., and Jost, J. T. 2016. Beliefs About Childhood Vaccination in the United States: Political Ideology, False Consensus, and the Illusion of Uniqueness.” PLOS ONE. 11(7): e0158382. DOI: 1371/journal.pone.0158382
- Sultan, M., Tump, A. N., Ehmann, N., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Hertwig, R., Gollwitzer, A., and Kurvers, R. H. J. M. 2024. “Susceptibility to Online Misinformation: A Systematic Meta-Analysis of Demographic and Psychological Factors. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 121(47). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 1073/pnas.2409329121
- Zhu, X. and Pechmann, C. 2024. “Political Polarization Triggers Conservatives’ Misinformation Spread to Attain Ingroup Dominance.” Journal of Marketing. 89(1): 39-55 SAGE Publications. DOI: 1177/00222429241264997