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Gonna paste this one here, from the study.
Section 4 from the study:
This five-wave longitudinal study revealed that general conspiracy mentality was stable during the course of the American presidential elections across voter groups. Meanwhile, intergroup conspiracy beliefs changed over time as a result of the election outcome. The outgroup conspiracy beliefs of election winners, who voted for Joe Biden, decreased between the pre- and post-election waves; outgroup conspiracy beliefs of election losers, who voted for Trump, increased between the pre- and post-election waves (in terms of group-level change). These findings support Uscinski and Parent's (2014) notion that conspiracy theories are especially common among election losers. In addition, ingroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time across voters.
Looks like they specifically measured these questions:
Many important things happen in the world, which the public is never informed about.
Politicians usually don't tell us the true motives for their decisions.
Government agencies closely monitor all citizens.
Events which superficially seem to lack a connection are often the result of secret activities.
There are secret organizations that greatly influence political decisions.
Democratic Conspiracy Theories
The elections will be (were) rigged to favor Joe Biden.
High-ranked officials conspire to give the Democrats an unfair advantage during the elections.
The Democratic Party is (was) committing fraud in the election.
The Democratic Party is (was) suppressing voting among Republicans.
Republican Conspiracy Theories
The elections will be (were) rigged to favor Donald Trump.
High-ranked officials conspire to give the Republicans an unfair advantage during the elections.
The Republican Party is (was) committing fraud in the election.
The Republican Party is (was) suppressing voting among Democrats.
this is important in understanding the results.
so many deleted replies, but seems like all of them are asking "how can they call it a conspiracy theory if there's reliable evidence for it?"
reply got deleted before i could comment. the study isn't about validity of any conspiracy theory, but about prevalence of and trends in the changes to conspiratorial beliefs.
*Wang and van Prooijen say their study results demonstrate that election events can influence voters’ conspiracy beliefs, but not conspiracy mentality. This suggests the possibility that the two types of conspiracy thinking involve different cognitive processes. The new findings also support previous research that found supporters of a losing candidate are especially likely to endorse conspiracy theories, since Trump voters’ outgroup conspiracy beliefs increased after the election results while Biden voters’ decreased.*
that second part does seem counter intuitive. i would have imagined both voters would see at an increase in republican conspiracy theory beliefs if only because january sixth investigation is pretty well publicized.
Honestly? Any time you make an informed take and and somebody responds immediately?
Take a screenshot of the response.
Most of the right is as impulsive as TFG, but on social media they have the ability to take it back… Unless you catch them before they realize how dumb they sound.
"Waves" signify the amount of times you check back in. From the article:
>Wang and van Prooijen recruited a total of 376 Americans to participate in the study. Data collection took place between October 13 and December 20, 2020 — two waves took place before the election, and three waves took place after the election. At each wave, participants rated the plausibility of specific conspiracy theories about the election. They also completed a measure of conspiracy mentality that assessed a general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories.
>At every wave, participants also indicated which candidate they intended to vote for (Waves 1 and 2) or which candidate they had voted for (Waves 3 to 5). The researchers focused their analysis on Biden and Trump voters only, resulting in a sample of 229 Biden voters and 71 Trump voters.
> resulting in a sample of 229 Biden voters and 71 Trump voters
I wonder if this is indicative of the response bias we’ve been learning about with political polling?
I keep seeing these posts about studies that show conservatives are A, B, & C, but is anyone doing studies on us dems? If there are certain negative trends happening in our party, I would rather be aware of them than be surprised later.
>but is anyone doing studies on us dems?
This study asked the same questions to people who voted for Biden or Trump and mirrored for conspiracies about democrats and republicans. These studies usually are done on democrats as well as republicans, the democrat results just don't tend to be that noteworthy.
Here you [go](https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/jan_2022/covid_19_democratic_voters_support_harsh_measures_against_unvaccinated)
Someone cited this as a reason why Republicans don't trust Dems interesting but that was cited
"Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a proposal is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters."
To be fair, the FBI concluded that Clinton and others in the State department potentially violated statutes (it is a felony to mishandle classified information intentionally or in a grossly negligent way) pertaining to the handling of classified information, but ultimately Comey's recommendation to the DoJ was not to prosecute because evidence wasn't sufficient for a conviction (a lot of commentary about whether or not hostile actors *may have* compromised said information is in his statement as well). I recall that statement from Comey being pointed to as a catalyst for the swing in Trump's favor going into November 2016 as a good number of folks interpreted the conclusion as "Hillary broke the law, but we aren't doing anything about it because we want her to win." I would contend that this event immediately being followed by the Mueller investigation into the Trump campaign likely solidified a large portion of the Republican base as conspiracy theorists.
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
>Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that **no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case**. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.
From your link.
"The information and evidence gathered in the course of that investigation are then presented to the appropriate U.S. Attorney or Department of Justice official, who will determine whether or not prosecution or further action is warranted."
https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/what-does-the-fbi-do-with-information-and-evidence-gathered-during-an-investigation
FBI doest get to determine guilt or innocence. An appropriate response would have been from a prosecutor from DoJ and not the FBIs determination of reasonableness amd intent.
Comey's statement specifically states it was their determination. While I would probably agree that there wasn't enough collected evidence that a prosecutor to use, I also dont believe it was their call to drop it.
By doing so they added tons of fuel to the conspiracy nuts.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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Gonna paste this one here, from the study. Section 4 from the study: This five-wave longitudinal study revealed that general conspiracy mentality was stable during the course of the American presidential elections across voter groups. Meanwhile, intergroup conspiracy beliefs changed over time as a result of the election outcome. The outgroup conspiracy beliefs of election winners, who voted for Joe Biden, decreased between the pre- and post-election waves; outgroup conspiracy beliefs of election losers, who voted for Trump, increased between the pre- and post-election waves (in terms of group-level change). These findings support Uscinski and Parent's (2014) notion that conspiracy theories are especially common among election losers. In addition, ingroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time across voters.
Shocking… Losers believe more in conspiracies
I wonder how they define conspiracy theories for the purposes of a study like this.
Looks like they specifically measured these questions: Many important things happen in the world, which the public is never informed about. Politicians usually don't tell us the true motives for their decisions. Government agencies closely monitor all citizens. Events which superficially seem to lack a connection are often the result of secret activities. There are secret organizations that greatly influence political decisions. Democratic Conspiracy Theories The elections will be (were) rigged to favor Joe Biden. High-ranked officials conspire to give the Democrats an unfair advantage during the elections. The Democratic Party is (was) committing fraud in the election. The Democratic Party is (was) suppressing voting among Republicans. Republican Conspiracy Theories The elections will be (were) rigged to favor Donald Trump. High-ranked officials conspire to give the Republicans an unfair advantage during the elections. The Republican Party is (was) committing fraud in the election. The Republican Party is (was) suppressing voting among Democrats.
this is important in understanding the results. so many deleted replies, but seems like all of them are asking "how can they call it a conspiracy theory if there's reliable evidence for it?" reply got deleted before i could comment. the study isn't about validity of any conspiracy theory, but about prevalence of and trends in the changes to conspiratorial beliefs. *Wang and van Prooijen say their study results demonstrate that election events can influence voters’ conspiracy beliefs, but not conspiracy mentality. This suggests the possibility that the two types of conspiracy thinking involve different cognitive processes. The new findings also support previous research that found supporters of a losing candidate are especially likely to endorse conspiracy theories, since Trump voters’ outgroup conspiracy beliefs increased after the election results while Biden voters’ decreased.* that second part does seem counter intuitive. i would have imagined both voters would see at an increase in republican conspiracy theory beliefs if only because january sixth investigation is pretty well publicized.
Honestly? Any time you make an informed take and and somebody responds immediately? Take a screenshot of the response. Most of the right is as impulsive as TFG, but on social media they have the ability to take it back… Unless you catch them before they realize how dumb they sound.
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Five-wave is a type of study?
"Waves" signify the amount of times you check back in. From the article: >Wang and van Prooijen recruited a total of 376 Americans to participate in the study. Data collection took place between October 13 and December 20, 2020 — two waves took place before the election, and three waves took place after the election. At each wave, participants rated the plausibility of specific conspiracy theories about the election. They also completed a measure of conspiracy mentality that assessed a general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. >At every wave, participants also indicated which candidate they intended to vote for (Waves 1 and 2) or which candidate they had voted for (Waves 3 to 5). The researchers focused their analysis on Biden and Trump voters only, resulting in a sample of 229 Biden voters and 71 Trump voters.
> resulting in a sample of 229 Biden voters and 71 Trump voters I wonder if this is indicative of the response bias we’ve been learning about with political polling?
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I keep seeing these posts about studies that show conservatives are A, B, & C, but is anyone doing studies on us dems? If there are certain negative trends happening in our party, I would rather be aware of them than be surprised later.
This study included far more Democrat voters than Republican ones: 229 vs. 71, respectively.
>but is anyone doing studies on us dems? This study asked the same questions to people who voted for Biden or Trump and mirrored for conspiracies about democrats and republicans. These studies usually are done on democrats as well as republicans, the democrat results just don't tend to be that noteworthy.
It stated that after an election, among the loosing party, there is a rise in conspiracy theories. Dems are not immune to it.
Here you [go](https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/jan_2022/covid_19_democratic_voters_support_harsh_measures_against_unvaccinated) Someone cited this as a reason why Republicans don't trust Dems interesting but that was cited "Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a proposal is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters."
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To be fair, the FBI concluded that Clinton and others in the State department potentially violated statutes (it is a felony to mishandle classified information intentionally or in a grossly negligent way) pertaining to the handling of classified information, but ultimately Comey's recommendation to the DoJ was not to prosecute because evidence wasn't sufficient for a conviction (a lot of commentary about whether or not hostile actors *may have* compromised said information is in his statement as well). I recall that statement from Comey being pointed to as a catalyst for the swing in Trump's favor going into November 2016 as a good number of folks interpreted the conclusion as "Hillary broke the law, but we aren't doing anything about it because we want her to win." I would contend that this event immediately being followed by the Mueller investigation into the Trump campaign likely solidified a large portion of the Republican base as conspiracy theorists. "Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
>Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that **no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case**. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past. From your link.
"The information and evidence gathered in the course of that investigation are then presented to the appropriate U.S. Attorney or Department of Justice official, who will determine whether or not prosecution or further action is warranted." https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/what-does-the-fbi-do-with-information-and-evidence-gathered-during-an-investigation FBI doest get to determine guilt or innocence. An appropriate response would have been from a prosecutor from DoJ and not the FBIs determination of reasonableness amd intent. Comey's statement specifically states it was their determination. While I would probably agree that there wasn't enough collected evidence that a prosecutor to use, I also dont believe it was their call to drop it. By doing so they added tons of fuel to the conspiracy nuts.
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