Numerous studies have shown that individuals’ belief sensitivity—their ability to discriminate between true and false political statements—varies according to psychological and demographic characteristics. We argue that sensitivity also varies with the political and social communication contexts in which they live. Both battleground state status of the state in which individuals live and the level of partisan segregation in a state are associated with Americans’ belief sensitivity. We leverage panel data collected from two samples of Americans, one collected in the first half of 2019 and the other during the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign season. Results indicate that the relationship between living in battleground states and belief sensitivity is contingent on political ideology: living in battleground states, versus in Democratic-leaning states, is associated with lower belief sensitivity among conservatives and higher belief sensitivity among liberals. Moreover, living in a less politically segregated state is associated with greater belief sensitivity. These relationships were only in evidence in the election year.

中文翻译：

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社会政治背景下的误解：信仰敏感性与战场状态和党派隔离的关系

大量研究表明，个人的信仰敏感性——他们区分真假政治陈述的能力——因心理和人口特征而异。我们认为，敏感性也会随着他们所处的政治和社会交流环境而变化。个人所居住州的战场州地位和州内的党派隔离程度都与美国人的信仰敏感性有关。我们利用从两个美国人样本中收集的面板数据，一个是在 2019 年上半年收集的，另一个是在 2020 年美国总统竞选季收集的。结果表明，生活在战场州与信仰敏感度之间的关系取决于政治意识形态：生活在战场州与民主倾向的州相比，与保守派中较低的信念敏感性和自由派中较高的信念敏感性相关。此外，生活在政治隔离程度较低的州与更高的信仰敏感性有关。这些关系仅在选举年出现。