In newly published research, we found that it’s not conservatives in general who tend to promote false information, but rather a smaller subset of them who also share two psychological traits: low levels of conscientiousness and an appetite for chaos. Importantly, we found that several other factors we tested for — including support for former President Donald Trump — did not reliably predict an inclination to share misinformation.

Our findings suggest it is misguided to assign blame for misinformation to the political right broadly — indeed, doing so risks increasing polarization. Instead, it would be more productive for researchers, social media platforms, politicians and members of the media to focus their efforts on low-conscientiousness conservatives (LCCs for short) in particular. Yet, our findings also showed that fact-checking was not an effective way to prevent these conservatives from sharing false news stories, meaning other interventions are needed.