Do Survey Questions Spread Conspiracy Beliefs?

IF 3.2 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE Journal of Experimental Political Science Pub Date : 2023-02-15 DOI:10.1017/XPS.2023.1

Scott Clifford, Brian W. Sullivan

引用次数: 1

Abstract

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.

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调查问题会传播阴谋论吗?

阴谋论和错误信息在政治中越来越突出，这些信念对政治行为产生了有害影响。一项突出的研究表明，这些信念是通过反复暴露来促进的。然而，随着学者们急于理解这些信念，他们让无数受访者暴露在阴谋论中，这引发了一个问题，即研究人员是否在助长这些信念的传播。我们使用嵌入小组调查中的预注册受试者内部实验来研究这种可能性。研究结果表明，暴露在标准的阴谋问题中，一周后支持该阴谋的可能性显著增加。然而，这种暴露效应不会发生在为目标事件提供替代性、非阴谋性解释的问题格式中。因此，我们建议研究人员采用问题形式，要求受访者在事件的替代解释之间做出选择，以降低传播阴谋信念的可能性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Experimental Political Science Social Sciences-Sociology and Political Science

CiteScore

5.10

自引率

8.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS) features cutting-edge research that utilizes experimental methods or experimental reasoning based on naturally occurring data. We define experimental methods broadly: research featuring random (or quasi-random) assignment of subjects to different treatments in an effort to isolate causal relationships in the sphere of politics. JEPS embraces all of the different types of experiments carried out as part of political science research, including survey experiments, laboratory experiments, field experiments, lab experiments in the field, natural and neurological experiments. We invite authors to submit concise articles (around 4000 words or fewer) that immediately address the subject of the research. We do not require lengthy explanations regarding and justifications of the experimental method. Nor do we expect extensive literature reviews of pros and cons of the methodological approaches involved in the experiment unless the goal of the article is to explore these methodological issues. We expect readers to be familiar with experimental methods and therefore to not need pages of literature reviews to be convinced that experimental methods are a legitimate methodological approach. We will consider longer articles in rare, but appropriate cases, as in the following examples: when a new experimental method or approach is being introduced and discussed or when novel theoretical results are being evaluated through experimentation. Finally, we strongly encourage authors to submit manuscripts that showcase informative null findings or inconsistent results from well-designed, executed, and analyzed experiments.