Conservatives believe threatening falsehoods more readily than liberals do

Evidence

As noted, however, perhaps some cognitive biases work differently depending on our political persuasion; we have already seen that the backfire effect has less pull for liberals. Other researchers have explored the idea that there are some biases that may be purely partisan. In a fascinating paper in the journal Psychological Science, anthropologist Daniel Fessler has done some work on what may be called “negativity bias,” which tries to explain why conservatives seem more prone to believe threatening falsehoods than liberals do. In Fessler’s research, he presented subjects with sixteen statements (most of which were false), but none so outlandish that they couldn’t possibly be true. Some concerned innocuous content such as “exercising on an empty stomach burns more calories,” while others were light-your-hair-on-fire threatening, such as “terrorist attacks in the United States have increased since September 11, 2001.” He then asked subjects to self-identify as liberal or conservative, and then rate whether they thought the statements were true. There was no difference for the innocuous ones, but conservatives had a much higher probability of believing the false statements when they were threatening. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 116

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader backfire-effect discussion in the prior chapter and to the 2016 fake-news targeting literature. — connects to: Right-leaning fabricated stories earned more because conservatives click more — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 482; Perceived threat to in-group status evokes greater political conservatism. — Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson, On the Precipice of a…, 12; Anticipatory status threat directly shifts reported political identity toward conservatism. — Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson, On the Precipice of a…, 69 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Right-leaning fabricated stories earned more because conservatives click more #corroborates (0.90) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 482
• A larger fear-processing amygdala may make conservatives more susceptible to threats #expands (0.82) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 117
• Perceived threat to in-group status evokes greater political conservatism. #expands (0.78) — Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson, On the Precipice of a…, 12
• Anticipatory status threat directly shifts reported political identity toward conservatism. #expands (0.75) — Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson, On the Precipice of a…, 69