Who Believes in Conspiracy Theories? Network Diversity, Political Discussion, and Conservative Conspiracy Theories on Social Media

A survey of 3,441 U.S. social media users showed that a high portion believes in conspiracy theories, and their beliefs vary widely along the party lines and socio-demographic factors. In particular, conservative conspiracy theories were more pronounced than liberal ones, and older White males with high conservatism and Protestantism showed higher endorsement of conservative conspiracy theories. Furthermore, ideological conservatives who frequently discuss politics showed higher association with a conservative conspiracy theory than conservatives who discuss politics less frequently. However, network diversity moderated the interaction of conservative ideology and political discussion such that conservatives who discuss politics frequently in a relatively heterogeneous social media network setting had lower beliefs in a conspiracy theory than conservatives who do so in a more homogeneous network.