Table 2.
Various descriptives and demographics of main completer sample
| M (SD) | |
|---|---|
| Personal variables | |
| Conservatism (1 = “Extremely Liberal” to 7 = “Extremely conservative”) | 3.32 (1.69) |
| Belief in global conspiracies (1 = “Strongly disagree” to 5 = “Strongly agree”) | 2.63 (1.28) |
| Interest in political news (1 = “Not interested at all” to 5 = “Extremely interested”) | 3.47 (1.03) |
| Political party (1 = “Strong Democrat” to 7 = “Strong Republican”) | 3.21 (1.99) |
| Social media use between surveys (1 = “Not at all” to 5 = “A great deal”) | 3.24 (1.09) |
| Intention to vote in next election (1 = “Extremely Unlikely” to 5 = “Extremely Likely”) | 4.47 (1.04) |
| Feelings toward political institutions | |
| Feeling toward DNC (0 = “Completely cold/negative” to 100 = “Completely warm/positive”) | 44.41 (29.31) |
| Feeling toward RNC (0 = “Completely cold/negative” to 100 = “Completely warm/positive”) | 29.42 (28.36) |
| Trust in information (1 = “Not at all” to 5 = “A great deal”) | |
| Trust in information from online news sources | 2.74 (0.92) |
| Trust in information from social media | 2.21 (1.01) |
| Trust in information from traditional news sources | 2.90 (1.08) |
| Trust in information from government resources | 2.60 (1.07) |
| Trust in information from family and friends | 2.65 (0.96) |
| Demographics | % |
| Democrat | 54% |
| Republican | 26% |
| Non-leaning independent | 12% |
| Male | 55% |
| Female | 44% |
| Other/non-binary | 1% |
| White | 78% |
| Black/African–American | 6% |
| Asian–American | 6% |
| Multi-racial | 5% |
| All others | 4% |
Since there are more Democrats in the sample than Republicans, the overall averages lean more liberal/Democratic, though many analyses are agnostic of this, and we did not find party differences in the main outcomes