A recent study published in Political Psychology suggests that a person’s general tendency to believe in conspiracies strongly predicts their endorsement of specific political rumors, but mostly when those rumors attack their political rivals. The research provides evidence that psychological traits and political loyalties work together to shape what people are willing to believe. These findings help explain how political divisions feed into the spread of misinformation. Previous work has identified two separate predictors of these beliefs. First, people have varying levels of “conspiracy thinking,” which is a general psychological tendency to assume that secret, sinister forces control world events. Second, people tend to favor their own political groups. They usually accept theories that blame their political rivals and reject theories that accuse their own side. The researchers designed this study to see if these two separate factors actually interact with one another. The scientists suspected that general conspiracy thinking might have a stronger effect when a rumor aligns with a person’s political bias. People naturally want to protect the reputation of their own group …