Why conservatives might be more likely to fall for fake news

[Bill USA]

11. individuals who identified asmore conservative were more likely tobe duped by nonsense than liberals

Pfattheicher has done his own work into how conservatives and liberals process "bulls--t" -- in this case a highly technical term (yes, really) denoting statements that appear to be profound, but which are in fact meaningless.

In a small study earlier this year, Pfattheicher posed nonsensical statements like "hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty" and "attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation" -- to 196 supporters of various U.S. presidential candidates. He then asked them to rate how "profound" the statements were on a scale of 1 to 5, from "not at all" to "very profound."

While the study was not nationally representative, he found a significant correlation between support for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or Donald Trump and the favorable assessment of the meaningless statements. The relationship was the strongest for Cruz supporters in his sample. Conversely, he found no significant relationship between support for Democratic candidates and susceptibility to the nonsensical sentences.

Pfattheicher also found that individuals who identified as more conservative were more likely to be duped by nonsense than liberals.

[font size="+1"] ... Trump's base[/font]