Leveraging artificial intelligence to identify the psychological factors associated with conspiracy theory beliefs online.

ABSTRACT: Given the profound societal impact of conspiracy theories, probing the psychological factors associated with their spread is paramount. Most research lacks large-scale behavioral outcomes, leaving factors related to actual online support for conspiracy theories uncertain. We bridge this gap by combining the psychological self-reports of 2506 Twitter (currently X) users with machine-learning classification of whether the textual data from their 7.7 million social media engagements throughout the pandemic supported six common COVID-19 conspiracy theories. We assess demographic factors, political alignment, factors derived from theory of reasoned action, and individual psychological differences. Here, we show that being older, self-identifying as very left or right on the political spectrum,

SUBMITTER: Kunst JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11362279 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature