Jon Green, James N. Druckman, Matthew A. Baum, David Lazer, Katherine Ognyanova, and Roy H. Perlis. Forthcoming. “
Depressive Symptoms and Conspiracy Beliefs.” Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Conspiratorial beliefs can endanger individuals and societies by increasing the likelihood of harmful behaviors such as the flouting of public health guidelines. While scholars have identified various correlates of conspiracy beliefs, one factor that has received scant attention is depressive symptoms. We use three large surveys to explore the connection between depression and conspiracy beliefs. We find a consistent association, with the extent of the relationship depending on individual and situational factors. Interestingly, those from relatively advantaged demographic groups (i.e., White, male, high income, educated) exhibit a stronger relationship between depression and conspiracy beliefs than those not from such groups. Furthermore, situational variables that ostensibly increase stress—such as having COVID‐19 or parenting during COVID‐19—exacerbate the relationship while those that seem to decrease stress, such as social support, vitiate it. The results provide insight about the development of targeted interventions and accentuate the need for theorizing about the mechanisms that lead depression to correlate with conspiracy beliefs.
Chloe Wittenberg, Matthew A. Baum, Adam Berinsky, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, and Teppei Yamamoto. Forthcoming. “
Media Measurement Matters: Estimating the Persuasive Effects of Partisan Media with Survey and Behavioral Data.” The Journal of Politics.
To what extent do partisan media influence political attitudes and behavior in the United States? Although recent methodological advancements have improved scholars’ ability to identify the persuasiveness of partisan media, past studies typically rely on self-reported measures of media preferences, which may deviate from real-world news consumption. Integrating individual-level web-browsing data with a large-scale survey, we contrast survey-based indicators of stated preferences with behavioral measures of revealed preferences, based on the relative volume and slant of news individuals consume. Overall, we find that these measurement strategies generate differing conclusions regarding heterogeneity in partisan media’s persuasive impact. Whereas the stated preference measures raise the possibility of persuasion by counter-attitudinal sources, the revealed preference measures offer a more nuanced portrait of media effects. Specifically, among respondents who regularly consume ideologically slanted content, partisan media exposure appears to result in limited attitude change, with any observed treatment effects driven primarily by pro-attitudinal outlets.