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In polarized political environments, conservatives are more likely than liberals to share misinformation, driven by a heightened desire for their group to achieve dominance, according to new research from the University of California-Irvine. However, in less polarized settings, misinformation-sharing decreases significantly, and the ideological divide all but disappears. The research has been published in the Journal of Marketing.

Previous studies have consistently found that conservatives are more likely to spread political misinformation than liberals, but there has been little exploration of whether specific situations, such as polarized political discourse, exacerbate this behavior. Given the global rise in political polarization and its damaging effects on democratic processes, the researchers sought to pinpoint the situational and ideological drivers of misinformation in an effort to identify potential solutions.

“The rise of misinformation during the 2020 U.S. election season caught our attention. Early on, we didn’t see much difference between Republicans and Democrats in sharing misinformation,” said study authors Xiajing Zhu (a PhD candidate) and Connie Pechmann (a professor of marketing).

“But as the election approached, there was a noticeable increase in misinformation coming from the Republican side. This made us curious: why were so many people posting misinformation on social media, and why did this change so...

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