Psycholinguistic Markers of COVID-19 Conspiracy Tweets and Predictors of Tweet Dissemination

ABSTRACT

The adoption of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 has been fairly widespread among the general public and associated with the rejection of self-protective behaviors. Despite their significance, however, a gap remains in our understanding of the underlying characteristics of messages used to disseminate COVID-19 conspiracies. We used the construct of resonance as a framework to examine a sample of more than 1.8 million posts to Twitter about COVID-19 made between April and June 2020. Our analyses focused on the psycholinguistic properties that distinguish conspiracy theory tweets from other COVID-19 topics and predict their spread. COVID-19 conspiracy tweets were distinct and most likely to resonate when they provided explanations and expressed negative emotions. The results highlight the sensemaking functions served by conspiracy tweets in response to the profound upheaval caused by the pandemic.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editor-in-chief, Dr. Thompson, and two anonymous reviewers for their feedback.

Notes

1. Link to OSF project page: https://osf.io/zs52f/?view_only=0c5b38bd3ae4477e9749d6b1b526aa60

2. A supplementary figure illustrating the proportions and corresponding confidence intervals for LIWC variables has been posted on the Open Science Framework page for this project.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by a grant awarded by the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.