Partisanship,Individual Differences,and News Media Exposure as Predictors of Conspiracy Beliefs

Abstract

Conspiracy theories are woven into America’s social and political fabric. While such beliefs help some individuals organize their political world, their popularity also raise concerns about the health of a democracy when those governed also suspect powerful forces work against their interests. The research here examines national survey data to demonstrate such beliefs have both partisan and individual difference explanations. Generic news media exposure offers little explanatory power, but exposure to Fox News programming predicts greater belief in theories critical of Democrats.

Keywords

conspiracy theories democracy partisanship news exposure misperceptions

Conspiracy theories are woven into the very fabric of American social and political life (Donovan, 2007; Goldberg, 2001; Oliver & Wood, 2014). Far more than intellectual curiosities, such beliefs provide a glimpse into how individuals construct their political worlds (van Prooijen & Jostmann, 2013) and, in a broader sense, they may also act as an early warning system for the health of a democracy given conspiracy beliefs are linked to such important factors as reduced political engagement (Butler, Koopman, & Zimbardo, 1995; Jolley & Douglas, 2014). While such beliefs often break along partisan and ideological lines—with conservatives believing the worst about liberals and vice versa—research suggests many individuals are likely to believe in conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan or ideological predispositions. Or, as Cohen (2010) wrote, belief in such theories may act as “the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world.”

In the following analyses, the partisan nature of conspiracy beliefs is pitted against three theoretically competing concepts found in previous research that may reasonably be expected to influence such beliefs: financial uncertainty, neuroticism, and interpersonal trust. Finally, I turn to the question of news media exposure, both broadly and in terms of specific sources, to explore a factor often discussed, but rarely examined, in previous conspiracy studies.

Conspiracy Theories

Scholarly interest in rumor is nothing new (Garrett, 2011). Early studies identified various types, including those designed to act as wedges aimed at undermining public loyalty and trust (Allport & Postman, 1947/1965; Knapp, 1944). In a similar vein, conspiracy theories are “an attempt to explain the ultimate cause of a significant political or social event as a secret plot by a covert alliance of powerful individuals or organizations” (Douglas & Sutton, 2011, p. 544), or as “the unnecessary assumption of conspiracy when other explanations are more probable” (Aaronovitch, 2009, p. 5). As such, most definitions of conspiracy theories revolve around plots by unseen yet powerful forces, often working for malevolent ends, differentiating conspiracy theories conceptually as a subset of rumor and gossip and closer to misperceptions or misinformation. While such theories may indeed be woven into the American fabric, they also exist across countries and cultures (Swami et al., 2012; Zonis & Joseph, 1994). For example, a 2008 survey across 17 nations found only 46% of respondents believed the official account that Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon (Allen, 2008).

The conceptual differences among conspiracy theories, misperceptions, misinformation, and rumor deserve mention. Scholars often use the terms interchangeably or spend little time differentiating among them, depending on the nature of the work. Berinsky (2010), for example, discussed “conspiracy theories and related rumors” in a discussion of political misinformation. Nyhan and Reiffler (2010), among others, suggest conspiracy theories are misperceptions in which believers “feel a lack of control” (p. 16). Adding to this conceptualization is the notion of factual accuracy, with conspiracy theories described as the “belief that covert, powerful forces are responsible for unexplained phenomena” that “typically (though not always) lack strong evidentiary support” (Nyhan et al., 2016, see also Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009). As such, conspiracy theories are a special class of misperceptions existing, despite facts to the contrary, and are distinctive in the perceived role, directly or indirectly, that powerful others play.

The list of popular conspiracy theories is long, impressive, and to some degree depressing, including stories surrounding the origins of AIDS (Parsons, Simmons, Shinhoster, & Kilburn, 1999; Simmons & Parsons, 2005), the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy (McCauley & Jacques, 1979; McHoskey, 1995), and the death of Princess Diana (Douglas & Sutton, 2008).¹ While it is tempting to criticize and even trivialize the holders of such views, these beliefs are not without significant theoretical and normative consequences. When the public not only lacks trust in its major institutions but actually suspects those very institutions of conspiring to work against them, the result challenges the foundations of a democracy (Drezner, 2010; Radnitz, 2012). Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to social and political disengagement (Butler et al., 1995; Jolley & Douglas, 2014), political extremism (Bartlett & Miller, 2010), and distrust in major institutions, important findings given such trust is deemed critical to a thriving democracy (Citrin & Muste, 1999; Levi & Stoker, 2000). Beyond attitudes about governmental institutions, belief in these theories can have consequences in related health and safety matters. Individuals who share conspiracy-based fears about vaccinations, for example, demonstrate lower vaccination rates (Kata, 2010; Salmon et al., 2005), those who share conspiracies about HIV/AIDS can have negative attitudes about its prevention and treatment (Bogart, Wagner, Galvan, & Banks, 2010), and exposure to conspiracy theories about global warming can result in less acceptance of science (van der Linden, 2015). To summarize, these beliefs have consequences beyond the beliefs themselves, making them of both theoretical and practical importance to scholars and society.

An Age of “Conspiracism?”

Noting the growth of Internet access and a growing distrust in major institutions, some have asked whether there is currently an age of “conspiricism” (Alter, 1997). A majority of Americans on the recent 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy continued to believe his death involved some kind of conspiracy, although the number of those who share this belief has declined by 20 percentage points since a high of 81% in 1975 (Swift, 2013). Within hours of the 2016 death of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, rumors and conspiracy theories surrounding his death spread across the Internet (Krieg, 2016).

Traditional media organizations are often viewed as conspiring with existing power structures, either visibly or invisibly (Aupers, 2012; Coady, 2006; McHoskey, 1995). On a philosophical level, Aupers (2012) draws a line from Kant, Nietzsche, and others to posit a “radical deligitimization [sic] of objective scientific knowledge” that fosters such beliefs (p. 25) and, by extension, fact-checking efforts or correcting information provided by news and political organizations. Uscinski and Parent (2014) countered by arguing the overall level of conspiracy theorizing in the United States has decreased over time and that Internet use, rather than promoting such theories, appears more devoted to mocking or debunking them. Regardless of whether theories and belief in them represent a growth industry or not, certainly the existence of such theories, and attempts to debunk them, reached new levels of attention by the mainstream media, particularly those surrounding U.S. President Barack Obama (Hollander, 2010), which continued to play a role even into the 2016 campaign, fed largely by the successful candidacy of President Donald Trump (Drop & Nyhan, 2016).

Why do individuals believe in conspiracy theories? From a theoretical standpoint, people naturally desire to make sense of their environment (Park & Folkman, 1997; van den Bos & Lind, 2002), and conspiracy beliefs may pose as “the poor person’s cognitive mapping in the postmodern age” (Jameson, 1992, p. 356). Research in the scholarly area owes much to the seminal work of Hofstadter (1971), who initially focused on the right-wing conspiracy theories and the growth a paranoid style of politics deriving from “angry minds.” Studies have pegged such beliefs as theoretically rooted in paranoia and delusions (Groh, 1987; Hofstadter, 1971; Pipes, 1997, see also Oliver & Wood, 2014), and work continues in linking belief in conspiracy theories with paranoia and other key individual differences (Brotherton & Eser, 2015; Swami, Weis, Lay, Barron, & Furnham, 2016).

A separate vein of work builds on the notion of anomie among the marginalized and disaffected, particularly in stressful times, as playing a role in such beliefs (Volkan, 1988). Low self-esteem, low levels of trust in people and institutions, and powerlessness are often identified as theoretical root causes (Abalakina-Paap, Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999; Berinsky, 2010; Doty, Peterson, & Winter, 1991; Douglas, 1995; Goertzel, 1994; Ross, Essien, & Torres, 2006; Waters, 1997). Others argue that both situational triggers and contextual variables can influence belief in conspiracies (Radnitz & Underwood, 2015). Sunstein and Vermeule (2009), for example, argued that group polarization may drive conspiracy beliefs. Among segments of the population, such as African Americans, holding such conspiracy theories has been documented as greater than in the population at large (Goertzel, 1994; Hoyt et al., 2012; Parsons et al., 1999), results explained as a function of feeling targeted by powerful, anonymous forces. Belief in such theories often exists not in a vacuum or isolation, but rather people may believe in a cluster of theories (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2006; Douglas & Sutton, 2011; Goertzel, 1994; Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, 2013; Swami, Chamorro-Premuzic, & Furnham, 2010, 2011, 2013). People can even believe mutually contradictory theories. For example, Wood, Douglas, and Sutton (2012) found that study participants who believed Osama bin Laden was already dead when U.S. Special Forces raided his Pakistan compound also believed he remains alive. Such monological belief systems provide an easy, automatic means of making sense of complicated problems, particularly during times of insecurity and discontent. Conspiracy theories provide a tangible enemy on which to externalize anger or confusion for problems perceived as too abstract or impersonal. Beyond feelings of powerlessness and distrust, research is exploring whether an underlying individual difference or conspiracy ideation exists (Brotherton, French, & Pickering, 2013; Swami, et al., 2011).

Finally, and perhaps most obviously, these beliefs are often strongly rooted in partisanship and ideological predispositions. Liberals may be more willing to believe theories critical of conservatives, or Republicans more likely to believe in theories critical of Democrats. In a laboratory setting, a fictitious account of an assassination was perceived as more believable if it fell in line with subjects’ partisan beliefs (Leman & Cinnirella, 2007). Even attempts to correct misperceptions can fail and even strengthen those misperceptions if in contrast with ideological views (Nyhan & Reiffler, 2010). While the literature and theory suggest strong ideological and partisan effects, it is unclear whether partisanship remains a statistically significant factor after the introduction of key sociodemographic controls. That is, some are natural believers and holders of monological belief systems while others are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories from a partisan point of view? Here I test the predictive power of sociodemographic, political, and news media exposure factors with special attention to partisanship and ideology by asking,

RQ1: What factors predict belief in partisan conspiracy theories?

A host of other factors may play a role in belief in conspiracy theories, particularly personality or situational measures of uncertainty, anxiety, and interpersonal trust. The latter, interpersonal trust, is distinct from conspiracy beliefs and is often generally considered a milder version of paranoia, an exaggerated distrust of others but without a conspiracy belief’s requirement of a powerful other at work (van Prooijen & van Lange, 2014). Neuroticism or anxiety, as discussed above, has long been classically linked to a precursor to belief in conspiracy theories. Financial uncertainty is thought to act in a similar fashion, creating in individuals a sense of lack of control and, therefore, encouraging belief in conspiracy theories as such beliefs can be empowering in a crisis (Goldberg, 2001). To test this, I ask,

RQ2: What factors predict belief in conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan nature?

The Role of News Media

Although research into conspiracy theories often mentions the role of the media, especially the news media, rarely is a careful analysis of exposure or content explicitly tested. Oliver and Wood (2014), for example, included no media variables in their models to predict conspiracy beliefs, with the closest proxy being political interest. Historically, greater news media use has long been modestly associated with greater political knowledge (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996; Weaver, 1996; Wei & Lo, 2008). This is not to say the media have not been used to promote or maintain falsehoods (Jameson, 1992), only that belief in political conspiracies represents in some fashion the opposite of political knowledge, the kind of misperception one might reasonably expect to be reduced to some degree by exposure to the news and correcting information. However, Hollander (2010) found exposure to the news media did little to offset the misperception that Obama is Muslim. He argued via the theory of motivated reasoning that respondents saw what they preferred to see in media content, thus negating any correcting influence by mainstream news accounts of Obama’s actual religion. Einstein and Glick (2015), however, found news coverage to have a small but significant effect in lowering belief in a conspiracy concerning the release of labor statistics. And it should be noted that not all media are created equal when it comes to supporting or debunking conspiracy beliefs. Watching fictional film accounts, such as Oliver Stone’s film JFK, made viewers more likely to endorse a conspiracy (Butler et al., 1995; Mulligan & Habel, 2013). In addition, two studies deserve note. Stempel, Hargrove, and Stempel (2007) examined national survey data to find exposure to mainstream news sources provided little predictive power when it comes to conspiracy beliefs. However, exposure to “less legitimate media,” defined as blogs and tabloids, did predict such beliefs. Meirick (2013) examined belief in the so-called health care “death panels” and found that while newspaper exposure negatively predicted such beliefs, there were no main effects for the other generic media exposure measures. Exposure to conservative-leaning Fox News, alone among the cable news outlets, directly predicted greater belief in death panels. Interestingly, exposure to Fox News had more impact among non-Republicans than it did among Republicans, suggesting the content of the network itself may have faced a ceiling effect among Republicans, who were likely to believe in the “death panels” as they were critical of a Democratic president’s health care initiative, but had room to provide explanatory power among non-Republicans.

Thus, we face two competing arguments on the role the news media may play in conspiracy beliefs. The classical political knowledge paradigm suggests that individuals exposed to more news and information should be more knowledgeable and, by extension, less likely to believe in misperceptions or conspiracy theories due to the correcting information found in most mainstream news media presentations. However, the changing media landscape and its well-documented fragmentation along partisan lines (Atre & Katz, 2005; Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Stroud, 2011) have increased scholarly attention to selective exposure and selective processing, particularly from partisan-leaning or partisan-favoring sources of news. An experiment by Garrett and Stroud (2014), for example, found partisans will at times selectively approach certain media while others will selectively avoid counterattitudinal content. In a similar finding, Iyengar and Hahn (2009) provided experimental subjects with the same stories with different origins and conservatives and Republicans preferred the same content labeled as being from Fox News and avoided news labeled as being from CNN or MSNBC. Democrats showed the same yet opposite effect. Beyond the content of the media but supportive of these findings, the theory of motivated reasoning suggests people selectively process information or choose to believe that which best fits their partisan predispositions (Kunda, 1990). As Lodge and Taber (2000) noted, there is a “constant tension between the drives for optimal accuracy and belief perseverance” (p. 187). Thus, political misperceptions or conspiracy theories may be difficult to alter, especially among those who rely on likeminded news media outlets. Certainly ideology can act as a “powerful motivating force” in judgments (Jost & Amodio, 2012, p. 62).

Here I explore two methodological approaches that also have theoretical ramifications in this and other studies. A more generic measure, such as the traditional days-a-week of exposure to a particular news medium, may offer very different results as compared with exposure to a specific network, newspaper, and the like. For example, a generic television news item is likely to differ from network-specific exposure measures of Fox News or MSNBC, depending on the criterion variable in the analysis, with the generic item possibly washing out the effects seen in exposure to specific networks or programs. In general, previous research has found news media exposure to have a modest but statistically significant relationship with political knowledge, although such results tend to be more consistent for newspaper exposure than for television news exposure, although in the case of television news these results depend on the method in which political knowledge questions are asked (Hollander, 2014). Extending this to beliefs in conspiracy theories or similar misperceptions, differences are also seen. Meirick’s (2013) studied mistaken beliefs in the so-called “death panels” said by some to be part of Barack Obama’s health care law and found exposure to generic network news to have no predictive power in such beliefs, but exposure to Fox News positively belief in death panels as part of the law.² Similarly, as discussed earlier, Hollander (2010) found no significant generic media effects on beliefs that Obama is Muslim although he anticipated such exposure would reduce beliefs in the Obama Muslim misperception. So although television news can be an inconsistent positive predictor of political knowledge, there is little evidence as a generic measure it reduces belief in conspiracy theories. Newspaper exposure, a more consistent predictor of political knowledge, may be expected to reduce such beliefs. The literature provides little guidance in how other generic media, such as radio or internet news, will predict conspiracy theory beliefs. Therefore, R3 asks,

RQ3: What roles do generic measures of mainstream news media exposure play in belief in conspiracy theories?

While it is unclear whether generic mainstream predicts belief, or disbelief, in conspiracy theories, as such global measures may fail to adequately capture the consequences of selective exposure to likeminded sources of information, a spate of recent studies have identified Fox News in particular as having unique effects on political attitudes (Kull, Ramsay, & Lewis, 2003; Meirick, 2013; Nyhan, 2010; Ramsay et al., 2010). Fox News appeals to more Republican or politically conservative viewers, while CNN and MSNBC appeal to more Democratic or liberal viewers (Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Stroud, 2007, 2011) Meirick and Bessarabova (2015), in controlling for party identification and ideology, found liberal news media use was positively related to misperceptions that favored Democrats and negatively related to misperceptions that favored Republicans, just as conservative news media use was positively related to Republican-serving misperceptions and negatively related to Democratic-serving misperceptions. While this is a sound argument for a match between ideology and news source, it is also the case that individuals will often reject or resist evidence contrary to their opinions (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Nyhan & Reiffler, 2010; Taber & Lodge, 2006), making it questionable whether cross-cutting information can succeed when it comes to belief in conspiracy theories. In essence, partisan media may act to foster beliefs in misperceptions that are critical of the other political side and act to debunk such misperceptions about their own side. Therefore,

H1: Exposure to partisan news media will positively predict belief in conspiracy theories that correspond with that source’s partisan leanings and negatively predict belief in conspiracy theories that run counter to that source’s partisan leanings.

Method

Data were from the 2012 American National Election Studies (ANES) surveys in which the same respondents were interviewed before and after the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Randomly selected respondents were interviewed via face-to-face (2,054) and Internet modes (3,860) from independent sample universes of U.S. eligible voters. The data were combined and statistically weighted to represent the population.³ Data collection for the preelection survey began in early September 2012 and postelection interviews began November 7, 2012, the day after the election.

The surveys included questions about four conspiracy theories. From a partisan perspective, two might be considered conspiracies of the political right as they were critical of the presidency of Barack Obama, a Democrat, and two might be considered conspiracies of the political left as they were critical of the previous presidency of George W. Bush, a Republican. Although the questions were asked in a similar format, with four response alternatives ranging from some form of definite belief to definite disbelief, the theories provided in the data are not perfect parallels to one another. The first major difference is time. Two of the theories address Obama’s administration, current at the time the survey was conducted, while the two Bush administration theories require respondents to think back years to the previous administration and conspiracy theories surrounding it. The second major difference is in the wording and target of the questions. One of the four questions focuses on Obama’s birthplace—the so-called “birther” movement—and therefore named him specifically in the wording. The other three questions ask about perceived policies or actions and do not provide a president’s name, relying instead on “government” as the actor in some form. The full text of the survey questions follows:

Was Barack Obama definitely born in the United States, probably born in the United States, probably born in another country, or definitely born in another country?

Does the health care law passed in 2010 definitely authorize government panels to make end-of-life decisions for people on Medicare, probably authorize government panels to make end-of-life decisions for people on Medicare, probably not authorize government panels to make end-of-life decisions for people on Medicare, or definitely not authorize government panels to make end-of-life decisions for people on Medicare?

Did senior federal government officials definitely know about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, before they happened, probably knew about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, before they happened, probably did not know about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, before they happened, or definitely did not know about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, before they happened?

Some people say that when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in the summer of 2005, the federal government intentionally breached flood levees in New Orleans so that poor neighborhoods would be flooded and middle-class neighborhoods would be spared. Do you think the federal government definitely did this, probably did this, probably did not do this, or definitely did not do this?

All of these clearly fall in the category of misperceptions and I argue that they all fall to some degree into the category of being conspiracy theories in which, implicitly or explicitly, there is the suggestion of a plan or plot by others to mislead or cause harm to certain individuals, or as Sunstein and Vermeule (2009) described it, the “machinations of powerful people, who attempt to conceal their role (p. 205). The Obama “birther” misperception, for example, can be viewed as a conspiracy among political leaders and government officials to hide his true birthplace from the public to maintain his presidency. That said, an argument can be made that the two Obama misperceptions are to some degree factually distinct from the two Bush misperceptions. Ample evidence exists that the Obama misperceptions are factually incorrect, from the newspaper birth announcement in Hawaii to the actual birth certificate, while the actual text of the Affordable Care Act provided evidence against the “death panel” question. On the other hand, while no evidence supports the Bush misperceptions of foreknowledge of 9/11 or redirecting the Katrina floodwaters into poor neighborhoods, no clear and simple disconfirming evidence exists either. Simply put, it is difficult to put together a list of comparable conspiracy theories as these items were the only ones available in the data.

As discussed above and based on availability of items in the ANES survey, three factors were explored in terms of predictive power of belief in conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan direction. The first, financial uncertainty, was measured by asking respondents if they were better or worse off now, with a follow-up question gauging the degree to which they were better or worse off, resulting in a 1 to 5 scale with high responses equaling greater financial uncertainty. Interpersonal trust was measured by a single item asking respondents “how often people can be trusted?” Scores ranged on a 1 to 5 scale, with high responses equaling greater trust. Neuroticism was measured by two items included as part of the Big 5 Personality Traits experiment in the ANES survey. These items asked respondents to evaluate themselves on how well certain words described them. Of interest here are two questions that asked, first, how well “anxious, easily upset” described them and, the second, asked how well “calm, emotionally stable” described them. The “calm” results were reverse recoded and the items combined into a single measure of neuroticism with high scores representing greater anxiety.

The surveys included both a set of traditional news media exposure items, called here generic measures, and a set of program-specific measures. The generic measures were exposure, on the traditional 0- to 7-days scale, to news from the Internet, paper newspapers, radio, and television. The means and standard deviations for these items were Internet (3.57, 2.75) newspaper (2.13, 2.58), radio (2.45, 2.53), and television (3.86, 2.63). The data did not include questions on exposure items to specific cable news networks, such as Fox News Channel or MSNBC, but rather included questions that measured, on a dichotomous yes–no format, exposure to specific programs aired within those networks. To construct a Fox News exposure index, I selected eight programs, such as those hosted by Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. (M = 0.54, SD = 1.31, α = .87). From MSNBC, the data included only a single program, that hosted by Chris Matthews (M = 0.05, SD = 0.22), and from CNN a single program, that hosted by Anderson Cooper (M = 0.11, SD = 0.32). A set of three questions asked about exposure to the nightly news offered by the three traditional broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), which were combined into a single broadcast news index (M = 0.72, SD = 0.91, α = .53).

Results

Responses to questions about the four conspiracy theories ranged from some form of strongly believing to strongly disbelieving the story. Respondents demonstrated little extreme belief in any of the four conspiracy theories (see Table 1).⁴ Only 6.3% reported believing Obama was “definitely born in another country,” for example, and 9.6% believed the Obama health care law “definitely authorizes” government panels to make end-of-life decisions for people on Medicare. Only 2.8% of respondents definitely believed the Bush administration intentionally directed floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina into the poor sections of New Orleans and 10.4% said the government definitely knew of the 9/11 attack in advance. By comparison, the “definite disbelief” numbers were significantly greater, with nearly half disbelieving the Obama birth and Katrina stories, over a quarter disbelieving the death panel story, and one fifth disbelieving the 9/11 story.

Table 1.

Percent Responses of Belief in Conspiracy Theories.

	Definite disbelief	Mild disbelief	Mild belief	Definite belief	M (SD)
Obama born outside United States	46.4	28.5	18.7	6.3	1.9 (0.9)
Health care death panels	28.7	31.0	30.7	9.6	2.2 (1.0)
Government knew of 9/11	21.6	39.0	29.9	10.4	2.3 (0.9)
Hurricane Katrina floods	45.0	38.0	14.2	2.8	1.7 (0.8)

Note. Mean scores based on coding of results on a 1 (definite disbelief) to 4 (definite belief) scale, thus higher scores represent greater belief. All mean entries in the final column are significantly different from one another by t test at p < .05.

The questions were coded as “1” for definite disbelief to “4” for belief, so high scores reflect belief in the theories. In this coding scheme, all of the conspiracy theory beliefs were significantly different from one another by t test. There was greater belief among respondents in the government’s prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (M = 2.28) than there was in the existence of death panels (M = 2.21, t = −3.2, df = 4,955, p < .001), about Obama’s birthplace (M = 1.85, t = −25.0, df = 5,205, p < .001), and the directing of the Hurricane Katrina floodwaters (M = 1.75, t = 39.3, df = 5,276, p < .001). Belief in the various conspiracy theories were correlated with one another, with the strongest coefficients found, unsurprisingly, between the two theories critical of Obama (r = .38, p < .001) and between the two theories critical of Bush (r = .37, p < .001).⁵ The bivariate relationships among conspiracy beliefs were weaker when examined across presidential administrations as opposed to within them, though all were positive and statistically significant. Belief in the Obama birthplace theory was positively associated with belief in the Katrina theory (r = .06, p < .001) and the 9/11 theory (r = .11, p < .001), and belief in the death panels theory was positively associated with the Katrina theory (r = .12, p < .001) and the 9/11 theory (r = .12, p < .001).⁶ While there is a strong partisan flavor to these correlations, the results also suggest some overlap in the belief of conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan direction.

The bivariate relationships were mixed among the three individual difference variables. Greater neuroticism (M = 3.10) was associated with less interpersonal trust (M = 3.03, r = −.15, p < .001) and a greater sense of financial uncertainty (M = 3.03, r = .06, p < .001). Financial uncertainty was unrelated to interpersonal trust (r = −.02, ns).⁷ Again at the bivariate level, financial uncertainty was positively associated with belief in the Obama place-of-birth theory (r = .25, p < .001) and death panel theory (r = .18, p < .001) but was unrelated to belief in the two Bush theories. Neuroticism was modestly but positively associated with beliefs in all four theories, with statistically significant coefficients ranging from .03 to .09. In a similar fashion, interpersonal trust was negatively associated with all four conspiracy theories, with statistically significant coefficients ranging from −.06 to −.20. Finally, the various news media exposure items tended to be positively correlated with one another.⁸

RQ1 asked what factors predict belief in conspiracy theories ordered along partisan lines, while RQ2 asked what factors predict beliefs in such theories regardless of their partisan direction. Table 2 provides an initial bivariate look at the associations between belief in the four theories with key sociodemographic, political, media, and individual difference factors. Education, for example, was negatively associated with belief in all four theories presented to respondents. Unsurprisingly, party identification and ideology (both measured on 7-point scales) were associated in the expected partisan directions depending on the nature of the conspiracy theory examined, with conservatives (or Republicans) more likely to believe in the conspiracy theories involving the Obama Administration and liberals (or Democrats) more likely to believe in the conspiracy theories involving the Bush Administration. Among the individual difference variables, at the bivariate level, neuroticism was associated with greater belief in all four theories while interpersonal trust had a negative association with belief in all four. Financial uncertainty was associated only with belief in the theories about Obama.⁹ Among the news media variables, exposure to internet news and paper newspapers were negatively associated with belief in all four theories, while exposure to television news and radio news were negatively associated with the Bush-based theories. Exposure to programs on Fox News was negatively associated with belief in the Bush theories and positively associated with belief in the Obama theories.

Table 2.

Zero-Order Correlation Analysis of Belief in Conspiracy Theories With Key Variables.

	Belief in conspiracy theories
	Obama born outside United States	Health care death panels	Govt. knew in advance of 9/11	Katrina flood aimed at poor
Sociopolitical
Age	.08***	−.07***	−.10***	−.13***
Education	−.17***	−.13***	−.16***	−.18***
Party ID (Republican)	.45***	.30***	−.05***	−.12***
Ideology (Conservative)	.39***	.33***	−.09***	−.09***
Media exposure
Internet news exposure	−.08***	−.06***	−.08***	−.11***
Paper newspaper exposure	−.03	−.06***	−.10***	−.05***
Radio news exposure	.00	.03*	−.05***	−.07***
Television news exposure	.04**	.02	−.04**	−.06***
Fox News programming	.26***	.24***	−.09***	−.13***
Chris Matthews (MSNBC)	−.14***	−.16***	−.03	−.02
Anderson Cooper (CNN)	−.10***	−.10***	−.02	−.02
Broadcast networks	−.03*	−.10***	−.01	−.01
Individual differences
Financial uncertainty	.25***	.18***	.02	−.02
Neuroticism	.03*	.08***	.09***	.08***
Interpersonal trust	−.06***	−.10***	−.20***	−.19***

Note. Entries are zero-order correlation coefficients from weighted data. Party identification and ideology measured on 1 to 7 scales with Republican and conservative as high scores.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

A more rigorous examination of these relationships is provided in Table 3, in which a set of sociodemographic and political factors were regressed against belief in the four conspiracy theories. For more parsimonious presentation, the table provides only the standardized regression coefficients of the final models for all four conspiracy theories in a single table for ease of interpretation. First, the R² differences seen in the four models deserve mention, especially as each model contains the same independent variables. The factors examined here best predict the Obama “birther” and “death panel” questions (R² = .30 and .22, p < .001, respectively) as compared with the two Bush theories concerning 9/11 (R² = .08) and Katrina (R² = .12, both p < .001). These differences may lie in the factual natures of the questions, discussed previously, or the differences may be a function of time, as the survey was conducted during the Obama presidency and survey respondents had to retrospectively consider the Bush administration on the issues of Katrina and 9/11. Also, party identification and ideology, two key factors, did not perform as well for the two Bush theories as they did for the Obama theories, thus affecting the explanatory power provided by the models.

Table 3.

Hierarchical Multiple Regression on the Belief in Conspiracy Theories.

	Belief in conspiracy theories
	Obama born outside the United States (n = 4,081)	Health care death panels (n = 4,081)	Govt. knew in advance of 9/11 (n = 4,071)	Katrina flood aimed at poor (n = 4,071)
Age	.05***	−.09***	−.05**	−.08***
Education	−.13***	−.08***	−.10***	−.09***
Income	−.04*	−.02	−.06***	−.12***
Sex (female)	.04**	−.01	.00	.03
White	.01	−.09***	−.06**	−.04*
Black	−.07***	−.01	−.01	.12***
ΔR²	.08***	.03***	.06***	.10***
Party ID (Republican)	.34***	.16***	.07***	.00
Ideology (Conservative)	.10***	.17***	−.09***	−.03
ΔR²	.28***	.17***	.02***	.01***
Financial uncertainty	.09***	.09***	.02	−.01
Neuroticism	.01	.06***	.05***	.06***
Interpersonal trust	−.08***	−.07***	−.14***	−.05**
ΔR²	.02***	.02***	.01**	.01***
Internet news exposure	−.03	−.03	−.01	−.05**
Paper newspaper exposure	−.06***	−.03*	−.05**	.04**
Radio news exposure	.00	.03*	.01	.01
Television news exposure	.00	.04*	.02	−.02
Broadcast networks	−.01	−.07***	−.01	.00
Fox News programming	.08***	.15***	−.06**	−.07***
Chris Matthews (MSNBC)	−.04**	−.07***	−.01	.01
Anderson Cooper (CNN)	−.03*	−.03	.00	−.01
ΔR²	.01***	.03***	.00*	.01***
Total adjusted R²	.30***	.22***	.08***	.12***
F	94.1***	43.4***	15.9***	28.0***

Note. Entries are standardized regression coefficients (beta weights) based on weighted data of the final models. For white and black, the contrast group is Hispanic.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

RQ1 asked what factors best predicted partisan conspiracy theories, so it is best to view the table in terms of what factors consistently predict in the same direction belief in the two Obama theories and the two Bush theories. The answer, however, is not as clear as anticipated. The greater the identification as a Republican, the more this factor predicted belief in the two Obama theories (β = .34 and β = .16, both p < .001), but also the greater belief in one of the two Bush theories (9/11, β = .07, p < .001). The most conservative the respondent, the greater the belief in the two Obama theories (β = .10 and β = .17, both p < .001) and the less the belief in one of the two Bush theories (9/11, β = −.09, p < .001). In addition, financial uncertainty appears to play a role in partisan conspiracy theory belief. Such uncertainty was a positive predictor of the Obama birth theory (β = .09, p < .001) and the death panel theory (β = .09, p < .001) but was not a significant predictor of either Bush-based theory. Among the news media exposure items, the strongest argument for a partisan interpretation comes from exposure to Fox News, with significantly predicted belief in the Obama birther theory (β = .08, p < .001) and the death panel theory (β = .15, p < .001) but negatively predicted belief in the 9/11 theory (β = −.06, p < .01) and Katrina theory (β = −.07, p < .001). A partisan media interpretation receives some support from exposure to CNN and MSNBC, with watching a program from those networks being negative predictors of the Obama theories but unrelated to the Bush theories. Thus, when it comes to the first research question, there is some support for partisan conspiracy beliefs and one fed, in part, by exposure to cable news programming.

RQ2 asked what factors might predict belief in conspiracy theories regardless of partisan direction. Combining all four theories together into a single index proved problematic (α = .49), so we must examine each conspiracy theory individually and look for consistencies. In other words, are there factors that predict belief across all the theories presented? As discussed earlier, education proved to be a negative predictor across all theories. To a lesser extent, age also crossed boundaries, the exception being belief that Obama was born outside the United States. It is here that the individual difference factors play a role. While financial uncertainty appears most closely tied to belief in the Obama theories—perhaps due to Obama being president at the time the survey was conducted—neuroticism and interpersonal trust appear to span partisan lines. Neuroticism (anxiety) positively predicted the two Bush theories (β = .05 and .06, both p < .001) and positively predicted belief in one of the two Obama theories (death panels, β = .06, p < .001). Even more significant is the finding for interpersonal trust, a negative predictor of all four theories with coefficients ranging from −.05 to −.14, suggesting greater trust leads to less belief in conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan nature. Taken as a whole, the results above suggest that while partisanship plays an important part in understanding conspiracy beliefs, and news media exposure to a lesser degree, economic uncertainty, anxiety, and trust within individuals also play a significant role and must be taken into account, especially when considering beliefs that span partisan boundaries.

RQ3 asked what role the generic measures of news exposure (i.e., days of the week watching television news) would play in belief in conspiracy theories. The results were mixed. Again, Table 2 provides the bivariate relationships and Table 3 the multivariate models as presented earlier. Before examining Table 3, it is important to first consider the multivariate models in which the generic news exposure items were entered without specific programs or networks (no table provided). When not considering CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in the models but controlling for all the other factors seen in Table 3, several modest but statistically significant relationships were seen. Print newspaper exposure was a negative predictor of three of the four theories, with standardized regression coefficients ranging from .03 to .05, and was a positive predictor of belief in the Katrina theory (β = .05, p < .001). Internet news exposure also negatively predicted three of the four theories, with standardized regression coefficients ranging from .03 to .05, but it was unrelated to the “death panels” theory. Television news positively predicted belief in the “death panels” theory (β = .04, p < .05) and negatively predicted belief in the Katrina theory (β = −.03, p < .05).

The full models, including the specific programs or networks, are seen in Table 3. Again, exposure to paper newspapers negatively predicted belief in three of the four theories, but positively predicted belief in the Katrina theory (β = .04, p < .01). Internet news exposure negatively predicted belief only in the Katrina theory (β = −.05, p < .01) and thus was more affected by inclusion of the specific programs and networks. Radio and television news exposure positively predicted belief only in the “death panels” theory.

H1 predicted that the partisan leanings of a new source may affect audience beliefs, with a more conservative source resulting in less belief in those theories critical of a conservative or Republican administration and greater belief in theories critical of a liberal or Democratic administration, with the opposite effect predicted more liberal or left-leaning news sources. Support for this hypothesis was found primarily in terms of exposure to Fox News, a cable news network preferred by political conservatives and identified in previous studies as one that draws more conservative viewers, but this effect was also seen in other cable news exposure items. Even after statistically controlling for sociodemographic, political, and individual difference factors, viewing Fox News programs was a positive predictor in belief in both Obama theories (β = .08 and .15, both p < .001) and was a negative predictor of both Bush theories (β = .06 and .07, both p < .01). Exposure to Chris Matthew’s program on MSNBC was a negative predictor of both Obama theories (β = −.04 and −.07, both p < .01), but such viewing was unrelated to the Bush theories. Finally, exposure to the program on CNN hosted by Anderson Cooper was a modest negative predictor of belief in the Obama birther theory (β = −.03, p < .05) and was unrelated to all the other theories. In all, support for this hypothesis is seen largely from the Fox News measure. Exposure to Fox News is a more consistent factor among the cable news outlets when it comes to predicting belief in conspiracy theories along partisan lines, in this case belief in theories critical of a Democratic administration and disbelief in those theories critical of a Republican administration.

Discussion

Although belief in conspiracy theories is often derided, such beliefs provide many individuals with a useful way to simplify a complex political world. More than misperceptions, conspiracy theories assign blame either implicitly or explicitly to powerful or even invisible forces for the perceived difficulties in the lives of believers. Thus, “belief in conspiracy theories is functional for basic sense-making processes” (van Prooijen, 2011, p. 122). Belief in conspiracy theories in the United States is often colored by partisan predispositions, instances in which liberals or Democrats are more likely to believe stories critical of conservatives or Republicans, and vice versa. Competing with this partisan perspective, however, is that many individuals demonstrate monological belief systems in which they often believe in several, even contradictory, theories that can cut across political lines. Thus, we have two theoretical avenues from which to approach beliefs—a partisan perspective in which some believe the worst of those across the political divide, and a counter perspective in which certain persons are predisposed to believe in conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan nature, often due to such individual or situational difference factors as those studied here: anxiety, uncertainty, and distrust of others. While previous studies examined these two perspectives individually, few have approached conspiracy theories from both a partisan and individual difference explanation, and fewer still have tested the role news media exposure—often considered vital in political sense making—may play in such beliefs.

Here I find that both approaches have merit. There was strong support for a partisan interpretation of the data. Party identification and ideology predicted beliefs in the theories along mostly expected partisan directions. The more conservative a respondent, for example, the greater the belief in theories critical of Obama and the more likely a respondent was to disbelieve a theory critical of Bush. Thus partisanship, measured through either party identification or ideology, does provide explanatory power in understanding why people believe in conspiracy theories about a president and the administration. Partisanship, however, tells only part of the story. Individual or situational differences also deserve attention. Here I looked at three factors often found in the conspiracy theory literature: reported uncertainty about a respondent’s financial situation, the anxiety as measured by neuroticism, and trust—or lack thereof—in others. All have previously been tied in some fashion to belief in conspiracy theories. Financial uncertainty proved the least consistent of these factors and predicted only belief in the Obama theories, perhaps due to the survey being conducted during Obama’s term in office and therefore making financial uncertainty more a factor in current conspiracy theories than in retrospective consideration of the Bush theories concerning a previous administration. Neuroticism was a positive predictor of three of the four conspiracy theories, cutting across partisan lines and suggesting personal anxiety can indeed play a role in monological belief systems. Finally, interpersonal trust was a negative predictor in all four theories, suggesting that those who find it difficult to trust in others also find it easier to believe in stories that have, at their heart, the notion that powerful others are at work in their lives. In all, these factors suggest some individuals are likely to believe in conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan nature, in large part due to their anxiety and trust, but for many individuals partisanship remains a powerful explanatory factor. Thus, it is limiting to merely study conspiracy theories in a partisan framework.

This study also examined the role of generic measures of news exposure, the traditional days-of-the-week approach, as compared with exposure to more specific television programs or networks. Although news media exposure is modestly associated with general political knowledge and might reasonably be expected to result in less belief in the political misperceptions that undergird conspiracy theories, previous work has found few such relationships. The analyses here provided a similar outlook. Exposure to paper newspapers and, to a lesser degree, exposure to internet news were often negative predictors of such beliefs, demonstrating that the generic measures can cut across partisan lines. Generic measures of radio and television news were less a factor. Taken together, these paint a picture of some influence by the generic measure of news exposure but also enough doubt arises to make such global measures, especially of television news, questionable given they appear to wash out the differences found when examining specific networks or programs. In a fragmented media marketplace, particularly that of cable news, these traditional measures may not fully capture how people consume the news and therefore fail to provide sufficient explanatory or predictive power in scholarly studies. In other words, such generic measures may miss significant media effects, and there are sound theoretical reasons to suspect news consumption may act to either decrease conspiracy beliefs by exposure to factual information or enhance such beliefs, particularly those with partisan overtones. The results here suggest the latter can indeed be true, particularly in the case of Fox News Channel programming, which has been identified in previous studies as affecting persons in unique ways, at least compared to other television news networks, and almost rises to the level of being a special case when studying the effects of television news. Even after statistically controlling for sociodemographic and political factors, plus the individual difference factors discussed earlier, exposure to programs aired on conservative-leaning Fox News resulted in greater belief in the theories about Obama and less belief in theories involving Bush. Exposure to programs aired on CNN and MSNBC was negative predictors of belief in the Obama theories, but were unrelated to the Bush theories.

Like any examination of secondary data, analyses here were limited by the types of questions asked and the measurement schemes employed, as well as the usual weaknesses found in survey research, even surveys of a national scope. A strength, however, is the asking about two conspiracy theories about the Democratic administration of Barack Obama and two about conspiracy theories derived from the previous administration, that of Republican George W. Bush. These questions were not perfectly aligned. The two questions about Obama in the 2012 survey analyzed here were obviously current, but the questions about the Bush Administration were retrospective. Also, one question asked specifically about Obama (the so-called “birther” question) while the other three focused more generically about the federal government’s role in events (the so-called “death panels,” Katrina flooding and prior knowledge about the 9-11 attacks).

From a methodological standpoint, these results suggest a reliance on generic medium-based measures such as exposure to television news may fail to tap into the true effects found today in the consumption of partisan-based news, a finding that echoes that of Hollander (2014). The results for viewing Fox News programming and, to a lesser extent, programs on MSNBC and CNN, support this contention. Future studies will need to identify not merely the medium in which someone gets his or her news, but the source of such news. Beyond partisanship, the models supported the importance of individual differences in understanding conspiracy beliefs. Here, financial uncertainty, neuroticism, and distrust of others contributed to the models even after controlling for sociodemographic, political, and media factors, and in general predicted greater belief in conspiracy theories regardless of their partisan direction. Future conspiracy studies will need to address how such individual differences interact with news media exposure to understand whether or not certain individuals are more susceptible than others to partisan-leaning news sources.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Barry A. Hollander is professor of journalism in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. His research focuses on political communication, including belief in conspiracy theories, perceptions of poll results, and the effects of new media on political knowledge.

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