Republicans are more willing than Democrats to spread fake news — especially in times of greater “political polarization” or competition between parties — because they want to win more.

This is the conclusion of a study published in Journal of Marketingby marketing researchers Xiajing Zhu and Connie Pechmann, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. Zhu is a Ph.D. candidate in marketing at the university.

They found that Republicans respond more aggressively to political competition, reporting information that is likely to be false, if not definitely false, to support their party.

“Although Republicans may understand that the content is very likely false, they are willing to spread it because they greatly value their party’s victory over the competition,” Zhu said in a statement.

“Democrats don’t value winning nearly as strongly. They place more value on fairness and inclusion and see the world in a fundamentally different way than Republicans,” she said.

Zhu and her colleagues reached their conclusion after a series of studies—the first two of which looked at fact-checked statements made by U.S. public officials in the news media and on social media between 2007 and 2022.

The statements were obtained through the fact-checking website PolitiFact, which allows journalists to rate each statement on a six-point scale from “true or accurate” to “pants on fire.”

Republicans are more likely to spread misinformation

The team’s analysis found that when partisan competition in the news increased, Republicans were 21 percent more likely to report misinformation than their Democratic counterparts.

In a period of low political polarization, the gap narrowed to just 9 percent.

To verify these findings, the team conducted three additional online surveys in which participants—who explicitly identified as Democrats or Republicans—were first assigned to a highly politically polarized or low polarized scenario.

This was accomplished by presenting subjects with actual quotes from current Democratic and Republican Senate leaders that framed the relationship between the two parties as either competitive and oppositional or cooperative and bipartisan.

Furthermore, each respondent was presented with misinformation about the other party. For example, posts such as “Democratic senator under investigation for helping Russian billionaires” and “Democratic senators deliberately creating global food shortage” were shown to conservative subjects.

Liberal participants, on the other hand, received posts like “Republican Senator Under Investigation for Helping Russian Billionaires” and “Republican Senators Deliberately Creating Global Food Shortage.”

Finally, participants were asked, “How likely are you to make a post like this on Facebook?” They were also asked if such a post would make their party stronger, better or more motivated.

The results showed that when political polarization was high, Republicans were significantly more willing than Democrats to communicate misinformation to gain an advantage over the opposing party.

In their final study, the researchers analyzed speeches by US presidents of both parties from 1929 to 2023, spanning the period from the 31st President Herbert Hoover to the 46th Joe Biden.

The team found that during times of political polarization (such as during election periods), Republican presidents were more likely to speak partisanly — using terms like “we” and “we” — than Democratic leaders.

“We acknowledge that the use of the first-person plural (eg, ‘we’) in speeches can sometimes refer to US citizens as a whole rather than a partisan in-group (Democrats or Republicans),” Zhu and Pechmann write in their paper.

“But U.S. citizens are likely another ingroup. Thus, conservatives appear motivated to achieve ingroup dominance given polarization and liberals less so, perhaps regardless of ingroup,” they said.

“Republicans are responding to political polarization by spreading partisan misinformation,” Pechmann said. “This can have a detrimental effect on the state of democratic institutions and processes.”

For example, the two researchers reported that 400 restrictive election laws were introduced in 47 state legislatures following misinformation about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“Worse, 14 states passed restrictive election laws that, for example, shortened the time for mail-in, eliminated Election Day registration, and/or limited access to ballot boxes,” the researchers wrote. “These changes have reduced voter turnout and engagement, particularly among minority voters.”

How to deal with misinformation

Researchers have several suggestions for how to combat the harmful effects of misinformation.

Trying to dampen political polarization in the news and on social media would be an obvious approach — though impractical, the two say, given how polarization has market advantages in increasing audience size, engagement and political donations.

Alternatively, they suggest that more money could be invested in fact-checking. It is currently a service largely carried out by volunteer organizations with minimal resources.

More support could allow fact-checkers to focus their efforts during periods of heightened political polarization, such as around elections.

“Media literacy education can also be used to combat misinformation,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Currently, 18 states have mandated media literacy education to help students identify misinformation.

An estimated 84 percent of U.S. adults support introducing media literacy into the school curriculum—even though only 38 percent of those adults have received such education themselves.

“With increasing polarization worldwide,” the researchers conclude in their paper, “we hope our findings will help nations, communities and individuals better prepare for the effects of disinformation to preserve truth, trust and democracy.”

Link

Zhu, X., & Pechmann, C. (2025). Political polarization triggers disinformation by conservatives to achieve in-group dominance. Journal of Marketing, 89(1), 39–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241264997