The Hidden Appeal and Aversion to Political Conspiracies as Revealed in the Response Dynamics of Partisans (Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology)

R Notebook tutorials of statistical procedures, including all R code, used to conduct analyses reported in Duran, Nicholson, and Dale (2017). Also included is the complete dataset used to perform statistical tests and to derive descriptives.

Data (deidentified):

Complete data set that contains all variables necessary for replicating reported analyses and descriptives.

Relevant File:

• Mouse-Traj-2GIT.csv

Explanation for each column and codes:

• Column A: subjnum: Subject number
• Column B: age: Age of subjects
• Column C: sex: 1 = male, 2 = female
• Colmnn D: trialnum: Order of trials
• Column E: questionType: Numeric identification code given to each unique statement
• Column F: resp_type: Was statement a general knowledge item (Gen Knowledge), Bush item (Left-wing), Obama item (Right-wing), or general conspiracy (Gen Conspiracy)?
• Column G: poliID2: Did participant identify as Republican or Democrat?
• Column H: explicit: Was statement worded in Direct (Reject as False) or Indirect (Accept as True) terms?
• Column I: endorse: Was statement a general knowledge item (K), answered to endorse a conspiracy ("C"), answered to disavow a conspiracy (NC)
• Column J: condition: Was statement a general knowledge item (GEN) or critical item (CRIT; i.e., an item that involved an opportunity to answer as endorsing or disavowing a potential conspiracy)
• Column K: topic: Redundant with resp_type; Was statement a general knowledge item (GK), Bush item (BO), Obama item (BO), or general conspiracy item (GC)
• Column L: variable: dependent variables; choice = Likert-confidence score, tottm = total time, latency = latency time, avgdeviat = average deviation
• Column M: value: score for each of the variables

R Analysis Code:

Each file contains the sequence of steps in R to generate the linear mixed effects models reported in manuscript for the average deviation, latency, and confidence variables, using data from Mouse-Traj-2GIT.csv described above. Allows for complete replication.

Relevant Files:

• analysis_avgdeviat.Rmd
• analysis_latency.Rmd
• analysis_confidence.Rmd

A collection of helper function files used in the above code for reporting analyses.

• summary_stats.R

R Analysis Code (Executed):

Similiar to .Rmd files provided above, but with output of all commands displayed to correspond with data reported in the manuscript.

Relevant Files:

• http://dynamicog.org/poliConsp/analysis_latency.html
• http://dynamicog.org/poliConsp/analysis_avgdeviat.html
• http://dynamicog.org/poliConsp/analysis_confidence.html

R Code For Descriptives:

R Code used to generate summary statistics and reported descriptives.

Relevant File:

• responseTrends.Rmd

Misc: Response to Action Editor

A response to the action editor during the review process that provides rationale and interpretation for the statistical analysis in the manuscript using R and R Markdown. Commented throughout.

Relevant File:

• http://dynamicog.org/poliConsp/AE_analysis.html