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Do Survey Questions Spread Conspiracy Beliefs?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2023

Scott Clifford Open the ORCID record for Scott Clifford [Opens in a new window]  and
Brian W. Sullivan Open the ORCID record for Brian W. Sullivan [Opens in a new window]
Scott Clifford*
Affiliation:
University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
Brian W. Sullivan
Affiliation:
Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State, Arlington, VA, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: scliffor@central.uh.edu
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Abstract

Conspiracy theories and misinformation have become increasingly prominent in politics, and these beliefs have pernicious effects on political behavior. A prominent line of research suggests that these beliefs are promoted by repeated exposure. Yet, as scholars have rushed to understand these beliefs, they have exposed countless respondents to conspiratorial claims, raising the question of whether researchers are contributing to their spread. We investigate this possibility using a pre-registered within-subjects experiment embedded in a panel survey. The results suggest that exposure to a standard conspiracy question causes a significant increase in the likelihood of endorsing that conspiracy a week later. However, this exposure effect does not occur with a question format that offers an alternative, non-conspiratorial explanation for the target event. Thus, we recommend that researchers reduce the likelihood of spreading conspiracy beliefs by adopting a question format that asks respondents to choose between alternative explanations for an event.

Keywords

Conspiracy beliefsMisinformationIllusory truthPanel conditioning
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Summer 2023 , pp. 231 - 241
Open Practices
Open data Open materials
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

This article has earned badges for transparent research practices: Open Data and Open Materials. For details see the Data Availability Statement.

This article was accepted for publication under the previous editorial team led by Vin Arceneaux.

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