Fairleigh-Dickerson U's Public Mind Poll has released the results of
a poll focusing on the U.S. populace's belief in conspiracy theories.
Both Democrats and Republicans claimed to believe in one or more
conspiracy theories -- of 4 conspiracy theories, 56% of Democrats
believed in one or more while 75% of Republicans believed in one or
more. Most significantly, 64% of Republicans believed that Obama
was hiding something about his past (which is used as a proxy for
"birtherism") while only 14% of Democrats believed this.
What is most surprising is not that these two groups believe in
conspiracy theories but the difference in the two groups of the
relationship of their knowledge of current events to these beliefs.
Quoting the press release by FDU:
|However, the relationship between current events knowledge
|and belief in conspiracy theories is conditional on partisanship.
|Among Democrats, each question answered correctly reduces
|the likelihood of endorsing at least one of the conspiracy theories
|by seven points. Among independents, each additional question
|reduces it by two points. For Republicans, though, each additional
|question answered correctly tends to increase belief in at least
|one of the theories by two points.
Allow me to emphasize this point: the more Republicans knew
about current events, the more they believed in conspiracy theories!
|"There are several possible explanations for this," said Cassino.
|"It could be that more conspiracy-minded Republicans seek out
|more information, or that the information some Republicans seek
|out just tends to reinforce these myths."
Salon has a public media article on this poll; see:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/poll_64_of_republicans_are_birthers/
The press release along with description of methodology and tables
of results can be read here:
http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2013/outthere/
On the homepage of the website is a barchart that summarizes the
key findings of the polls; see:
http://publicmind.fdu.edu/
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
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