The effects of misinformation on the left and right

The headline is misleading, but fortunately the article is more interesting than it sounds. A nice discussion about the complex interplay between ideology and identity.

According to this, conservatives and liberals both value safety, but to different degrees and in different ways. Both sides fear and hate the other because they pose a threat, albeit for different reasons : conservatives threaten minoritites, liberals threaten stability. Since they have more fluid thinking, liberals fear of threats can recede more quickly than that of conservatives. While the idea that liberals are more flexible is practically true by definition, I was more intrigued by the discussion on how polarisation and hatred of the opposing side occurs when ideology combines with identity : that worldview isn't the same as how we identify ourselves. I also like how they identify fear on both sides of the political spectrum.

Interestingly, in laboratory conditions there's little or no evidence that either are more vulnerable to misinformation : the current wave of conservative nuttery may be more due to the sheer volume of misinformation on the right wing side than on the left (not that there isn't any at all on the left, obviously). But the tendency for the right to experience so much more from its current crop of lunatic leaders may point to a root psychological cause.


A worldview isn’t an identity. It is a way of understanding the nature of the world. Is it safe or dangerous? Should we protect traditional ways of doing things, or is it safe to challenge them?

Today’s political acrimony results from Americans’ worldviews becoming married to their partisanship. Because people’s worldviews organize their whole life — not just the political part of it — a party identity defined by them produces intense conflict. Opposing worldviews have always existed in America (and probably since humans have been around). What is new is that they are now mapped neatly onto Americans’ party identities [whereas previously party identity was more about size of government, and thus included more broad-ranging worldviews].

The reality that the world is actually safer hardly matters. What matters to today’s politics is that the bases of the two parties see it much differently.

If your worldview suggests the world is dangerous, the specter of terrorism will, of course, be especially concerning. But social change is potentially dangerous, too. Existing traditions and hierarchies have maintained order for millennia. Racial and gender equality threaten those hierarchies. LGBT people challenge those traditions. 

If you think the world is safe, you don’t see refugees as trying to infiltrate the country to do harm. They need our help. You don’t see identity groups vying for equality as threats. Instead old traditions and hierarchies are the real threats because they perpetuate discrimination.

Take 9/11, for example. Americans across the worldview spectrum were petrified. In the short run, the more fluid became more willing to trade civil liberties for security, more willing to support the use of torture. The fixed were already likely to support those things before the attacks. As time passed, however, the fluid went back to valuing civil liberties and opposing torture. Their worldviews hadn’t changed. That being said, our research makes clear that fear benefits Republicans in a worldview divided system. Opinions creep to the right, at least for a time.

Sure, there is partisan media on the left, but its audience is much smaller and it lacks misinformation peddlers like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. Why the much higher demand on the right? We think the answer must lie partially in the individual differences between liberals and conservatives.


The most likely reason would be a differential need for what psychologists call cognitive closure. Those we consider having fixed worldviews have a greater need for closure which suggests a greater need to avoid cognitive dissonance. They therefore are more likely to believe information that confirms their worldview. These differences may drive the supply of misinformation coming from political elites to some degree.


https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/18/18139556/republicans-democrats-partisanship-ideology-philosophy-psychology-marc-hetherington