Populist Attitudes and Misinformation Challenging Trust: The Case of Turkey

Abstract

Understanding trust in experts and scientists is crucial, especially in testing the challenges posed by pre- and post-pandemic realities. Establishing trust in experts, scientists, and institutions is beset by challenges, exacerbated by widespread misbeliefs on various science-driven topics. This paper explores how misinformation, particularly in the context of populist politics that fosters anti-intellectualism, undermines trust in these authorities. Using observational data from Turkey, a context driven by strong polarization and populist politics, we demonstrate how populism increases the acceptance of misinformation, which, in turn, mediates the relationship between populism and trust, decreasing trust for experts, scientists, and institutions. The findings also reveal that the negative impact of frequent social media use on trust is mediated by the acceptance of misinformation. By presenting a comprehensive model linking science-related misinformation and populist attitudes to trust dynamics in a polarized environment, this study contributes to the literature on trust-building and science communication.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shown us the real-world consequences of trusting science and scientists. Sustaining trust in scientific information and scientifically prescribed behavior has been a major challenge for public health authorities worldwide (Krause, Brossard, Scheufele, Xenos, & Franke, 2019). Although some of those challenges are political, such as policies or debates, where ideological preferences could play an important role (Druckman, 2017), others are more science-driven, such as climate change, vaccines, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), where objective truth is known but people still accept inaccurate information (Green et al., 2023). Although the literature predominantly covered the ideological bases of public trust in science and scientific experts, a broader range of factors still need to be addressed to understand skepticism and distrust in science.

The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant changes in public perception towards science and science-related issues (Spälti et al., 2023), as well as institutions tasked with addressing major problems (Hoes, Aitken, Zhang, Gackowski, & Wojcieszak, 2024; Rossini, Mont’Alverne, & Kalogeropoulos, 2023). As the public grapples with the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy has emerged as a significant obstacle in the collective effort to combat the pandemic (Stoeckel et al. 2023). This hesitancy is often fueled by the acceptance of misinformation, further exacerbating the challenges of establishing trust in experts and institutions. With that, trust in experts and institutions that motivate behaviors in accordance with scientific consensus contributes across an array of dimensions to public safety, policymaking, and science communication (Druckman & Lupia, 2017).

This study proposes that populist attitudes serve as a psychological foundation for distrust in various domains, including science-related subjects. Populist attitudes, characterized by skepticism toward elites and established institutions, are closely linked to the acceptance of misinformation, predominantly spread through social media. This acceptance of misinformation, in turn, acts as a channel through which populist attitudes indirectly further erode trust. incorporating the influence of social media on the acceptance of misinformation in our model, we offer deeper insights into how these platforms can in fact reduce trust through their role in promoting misinformation and shaping public attitudes toward scientific expertise.

In line with this motivation, this paper delves into the mechanism of diminishing trust in experts, scientists, and institutions through misinformation and populist attitudes, emphasizing the role of social media. By exploring these interconnected factors, the current study sheds light on the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the growing skepticism toward science and expertise. Unlike earlier research, we propose a comprehensive model exploring trust in connection with factors often proposed but not entirely studied in the literature, such as misinformation and populist attitudes. We tested this model in the polarized Turkish context under the conditions of populism.

The study of factors that drive distrust in science and experts needs to account for a combination of psychological indicators and acceptance of misbeliefs on science subjects, where the inaccuracy can be clearly defined. Although addressed in a much different literature, we propose populist attitudes as the psychological foundation for distrust across an array of domains. An important associating factor with populist attitudes is misinformation held in science-driven subjects, where we can detect inaccuracy. In addition to testing the direct and indirect negative effects of populist attitudes and misinformation on trust, this paper demonstrates how misinformation mediates the negative impact of social media use on different domains of trust. Ultimately, our study offers insights that can guide policymakers, science communicators, and researchers in addressing the challenges posed by misinformation. By exploring these interconnected factors, we can develop evidence-based approaches to foster trust, promote accurate information, and strengthen the foundations of science communication in polarized contexts.

This article proceeds as follows: first, we outline previous work on misinformation, populism, and trust. Second, we present our hypotheses and data, coupled with an explanation of our empirical approach. The following section presents the results driven by our theoretical expectations. We conclude by considering the implications for democratic citizenship in the case of Turkey.

Conceptualizing Misinformation

Misinformation may be an overarching concept that refers to untruthful information deemed false in light of relevant empirical evidence and expert knowledge (Hameleers & Brosius, 2022). In contrast, disinformation is the intentional deception, manipulation, or doctoring of information spread to achieve a certain political goal (Freelon & Wells, 2020). Whether unintentional or intentional, misinformation refers to inaccurate or misleading information (Borukhson, Lorenz-Spreen, & Ragni, 2022; Lewandowsky, Ecker, & Cook, 2020), with significant negative consequences for individuals and society. Widespread misinformation can lead to collective preferences that are far different from those that would exist if people were correctly informed (Kuklinski, Quirk, Jerit, Schwieder, & Rich, 2000). For example, misinformation on climate change, in particular the denial of its anthropogenic nature, can create confusion and skepticism, undermining efforts to address the issue (Erisen, Yildirim, Duran, Şar, & Kalkan, 2024; van der Linden, 2023). It reduces public support for mitigation measures, hindering investments in renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, and climate-resilient practices (Winter et al., 2022). Political polarization and social conflict can also worsen as divisions between those who accept scientific consensus and those who deny or doubt it add to the fault lines in society (Hart, Nisbet, & Myers, 2015).

Although the availability of information has increased significantly with the rise of social media, there has also been a simultaneous surge in the amount of misleading content (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2018). Furthermore, deceptive content can manifest itself in various forms, such as rumors, clickbait, junk science, fake news, or conspiracy theories, all contributing to the problem (Scheufele & Krause, 2019). Lastly, misinformation spreads six times faster than factual information (Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral, 2018), highlighting the challenge of speed. When looking at the spread of misinformation, multiple factors contribute to the rapid dissemination of misinformation. Social media algorithms, which prioritize simple, attractive, and engaging content, along with the preferences of individuals for negative news, play an important role in shaping the dissemination of content (Lewandowsky et al., 2020). Emotionally evocative content tends to go viral on social media (Berger & Milkman, 2012), leading to emotional contagion on networks (Carrasco-Farré, 2022). This underscores the negative effects of frequent use and exposure to social media.

In the context of the pervasive spread of misinformation, Wintterlin et al. (2022) highlight the importance of orientations toward science and the perceived credibility of scientists in influencing public perceptions of valid information. Interesting in this work is that the public’s contention on science is shaped not merely by direct interaction with scientific information but primarily by attitudes regarding scientific reasoning and the integrity of scientists. A positivist framework proposes that bolstering the public’s perception of science and its practitioners as credible could reduce the potential negative effects of misinformation by enhancing public resilience.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the context of misinformation, it is essential to consider the influence of technology (Ecker et al., 2022) and the frequent use of social media (Vosoughi et al., 2018). As a result, individual choices to believe and spread information have become increasingly significant, as they can act as catalysts for the widespread dissemination of false information, posing a potential threat to democratic decision-making (Lewandowsky et al., 2020). In the study of misinformation, an important factor that explains individual choices is anti-intellectualism related to the subject of populism (Merkley, 2020).

Populist Attitudes and Misinformation

According to populism scholars (Akkerman, Mudde, & Zaslove, 2014; Hawkins, 2009; Mudde, 2004), populism is a political and moral struggle between the general public and a group of political or social elites. By romanticizing common people and their traits, populism sees the general public as the keeper of virtue. According to Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013), this group of people is construed as the majority of the population and is considered a homogeneous actor with a single general will. Implementing this will is the only goal of populist politics (Mudde, 2004). In this definition, the execution of the general will is frequently perceived as an effort to reclaim authority for the mass public, who is thought to have lost it to immoral bankrupt elites. These elites may be in contact with other powerful groups in the system to control politics, the economy, the media, and the judiciary. As captured in this definition, an essential component of populism is its conspiratorial aspect, with a lack of trust in the system overall but in state institutions in particular.

Another key aspect of populism is that the division between people and elites should be moral, not simply programmatic. For those who hold populist attitudes, the elites must be fought against due to their morally repugnant character. Such moral divisions are responsible for the redemptive and illiberal aspects of populism, which does not allow legitimate differences of opinion: One is either with “the people” and the leader who embodies it, or with the elites, who are the enemies of the people (Akkerman et al., 2014). In that regard, populist ideology presents a conflict between pure, homogeneous people and the “evil elites” who plot to exploit them (Castanho Silva, Vegetti, & Littvay, 2017).

Although we see scant research looking at the connection between populist attitudes and misinformation, these concepts strongly relate to each other. First, populist rhetoric primarily rejects experts and scientists as part of an elitist establishment. Especially when it comes to political institutions, they are perceived as a part of the establishment that needs to be “changed.” Populist ideals undermine the credibility and expertise of these entities, leading to a greater likelihood of misbeliefs, especially on science-driven subjects. Science-related populism, which argues that ordinary people should determine the production of truth, considers popular misinformation to be credible and reliable (Mede, Schäfer, Metag, & Klinger, 2022). Hence, the populist claim that ordinary people own the truth leads to embracing disinformation and legitimizing post-truth so much that right-wing populists and citizens supporting populism do not share a universal way of referring to reality (Hameleers, 2022). This misinformation reinforces the notion that experts are part of a corrupt elite and that their knowledge and expertise cannot be trusted. Misinformation can thus thrive in this context, reinforced by the populist narrative, and further down the road it may erode trust in established sources.

Second, another important predictor of how populism relates to scientific information is anti-intellectualism, which affects the processing of expert consensus cues on scientific information such that high levels of anti-intellectualism in populist rhetoric potentially increase people’s opposition to scientific information (Merkley, 2020; Spälti et al., 2023). Using a Canadian sample, Merkley and Loewen (2021) has shown that anti-intellectualism is directly related to an individual’s perceptions of risk and compliance with expert guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Populism that pits morally superior people against political elites extends to intellectuals and academics and manifests itself in the form of science-related populism, predicting the worldview that scientists ignore people’s common sense and will (Mede, Schäfer, & Füchslin, 2021).

Populist strategy systematically undermines the credibility of scientists by presenting them as part of a disconnected elite, which extends the degree of mistrust in scientific expertise (Eberl, Huber, & Greussing, 2021; Mede et al., 2022). This strategy promotes a conceptual dichotomy in which scientific truths are contested not on empirical grounds, but through a populist lens that overvalues common sense against scientific knowledge (Eberl et al., 2023). Furthermore, underlying positivist attitudes toward science could counterbalance populist-driven skepticism by reinforcing public trust in the integrity of scientific sources (Wintterlin et al., 2022). These orientations are crucial in maintaining a baseline of public trust in science, especially as anti-intellectual sentiments, amplified by populist attitudes, tend to erode the perceived trustworthiness of scientific information. This complex interaction suggests a pathway through which misinformation finds fertile ground to gather public perception against scientific consensus. Overall, as scholars study populism as an individual-level construct with its sub-components among which anti-elitism plays an important role, research on how different populist attitudes affect misinformation and have downstream effects on trust in scientists and experts remains limited, which we tackle next.

Misinformation and Populism Challenging Trust

Unlike the individual-level psychological correlates of populist attitudes, political trust is an overall assessment of the political system, the institutions, and those who are held accountable, providing us with a wider test of our theoretical approach. As proposed by Citrin and Stoker (2018) political trust is one of a family of terms referring to citizens, feelings about their government. It overlaps with confidence, support for the system, and legitimacy on the positive side and with cynicism, political disaffection, and alienation on the negative side. Political trust, or trust in government, is an aspect of political legitimacy that provides the rightful way to govern based on legal foundations (Tyler & Jackson, 2014). The endowment of trust in political institutions involves the primary assumption that these actors will perform their duties reliably with competence and accountability. Thus, trust declines when government and state institutions fail to perform their tasks or engage in actions beyond their expected limits. When it comes to policy support, engagement with politics, vote choice, and legally binding citizenship duties, trust is the primary indicator with consequences in a variety of political evaluations and domains (Dal & Tokdemir, 2022; Rudolph, 2017). Any action taken by legitimate actors relates to the conceptualization of trust and thereby relates to the elite and the political system overall.

In the contemporary political world, where populism is a major force, political trust has become the central construct relating to both individual and institutional levels of factors, yet it has only received partial attention in the populism literature.¹ In that regard, understanding political trust and addressing the issues associated with populism relate not only to the determinants of populist attitudes but also to the challenges of increasing political polarization. Thus, a robust negative association remains between populist attitudes and people’s evaluation of the political institutions that uphold the political system and the country.

In addition to the general standing of politics, trust in the political system may also be related to the elite as the primary accountable group. Since the political elite is the legitimate authority in the control of policymaking, those who strongly trust national institutions are less likely to be anti-elitist (Wuttke, Schimpf, & Schoen, 2020). Any other group influencing the mechanism of politics and exploiting people would be perceived as a part of the elite. As such, those who trust institutions are less likely to seek a homogeneous and common identity in the protection of the way politics is run (Erisen et al., 2021). Thus, negative perceptions toward the elite regarding the common will of the people can only diminish when trust in the main pillars of the political system and institutions is restored.

With that, research on the question of how different components of populism affect misinformation, which in turn affects trust in scientists and experts, remains relatively limited. This is a particularly important question, as the salience of misinformation on the public agenda can further erode trust in the political institutions of democracy. For example, the presumed influence of misinformation on elections reduces satisfaction with democratic processes, threatening the commitment to democracy (Nisbet, Mortenson, & Li, 2021). Overcoming misinformation, promoting accurate scientific information, and fostering an informed public are crucial to sustaining democracy. Moreover, citizen polarization on institutional trust is associated with receptivity to misinformation and its potential negative social outcomes, such as excess mortality encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic (Merkley & Loewen, 2021).

While the concepts of trust and trust-building entail a broad spectrum of perceptions and attitudes, we need to differentiate between trust in political institutions, scientists, and experts, as these forms of trust have distinct foundations. First, trust in political institutions essentially reflects confidence in the structure and function of governance and the ability to uphold legal and ethical standards (Rudolph, 2017). In contrast, trust in scientists and experts is primarily related to the perceived competence and integrity of individuals and groups—not institutions per se—within specific fields of knowledge, such as climate, medicine, or food science (Bromme & Rothmund, 2021). This concept of trust, also known as credibility, is often influenced by the perceived objectivity, reliability, and transparency with which scientific information is conveyed. Understanding these distinctions is relevant for the current work, as populism is frequently studied in relation to trust in institutions (e.g., Eberl et al., 2021; Erisen et al., 2021).

Compared with earlier literature, this paper contributes to the fast-developing misinformation literature and the ongoing populism literature, both of which study trust in various ways.

As earlier research has addressed this connection from different perspectives (e.g., Eberl et al., 2021; Wintterlin et al., 2022), we present a comprehensive model that places misinformation at the core of the relationship between populist attitudes and trust in experts, scientists, and institutions, while also considering the impact of social media use. Additionally, we examine these models in a non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) context, specifically the Turkish case.

The Turkish Case

Turkey has gone through many stages of decline, from politicians seeking to hold onto power and challenging the country’s institutional foundations to a severe economic crisis that has resulted in a large devaluation of its currency and a decrease in the standard of living for its people. The growing problem of polarization in Turkish politics seriously strains the current democratic, economic, legal, and social foundations of the country (McCoy, Rahman, & Somer, 2018). Modern politics has become an ideological game that mainly distinguishes between those who support and those who oppose the government. Due to this polarizing atmosphere, tensions have been high, and the general population has been under pressure from a constant stream of events.

The degree of political animosity, derived from the events that took place in the previous decade, has translated the nature of politics and policy-making into a struggle of polarized opposites (Erisen, 2016; McCoy et al., 2018). The current Justice and Development Party (AKP) government partnership with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has developed a narrative that starkly divides the nation into “us” versus “them.” This rhetoric is deeply intertwined with a nationalist agenda that portrays the government-led coalition as defenders of the Turkish identity against both internal and external threats (Laebens & Ozturk, 2021). This polarization thus provided a fertile environment in which the accuracy of information was challenged, through ideological preferences or basic scientific denial.

Almost no studies have been conducted on the subject of misinformation, except a few partially related to the subject through COVID-19-related misbeliefs (e.g., Alper, Bayrak, & Yilmaz, 2022; Erisen, 2022) and vaccination hesitancy (Dal & Tokdemir, 2022). Among these, Dal and Tokdemir (2022)’s findings underscore that trust in government and health organizations directly influences the willingness of people to get vaccinated. Studies have shown that trust in experts, scientists, and institutions (e.g., the Ministry of Health) boosts vaccination rates and public health outcomes (Erisen, 2022). Similarly, related research finds that high trust in scientists correlates with greater compliance with health guidelines such as mask use and social distancing (Muğaloğlu, Kaymaz, Mısır, & Laçin-Şimşek, 2022).

However, different behavioral approaches have been used in populism and trust studies in the case of Turkey. These models demonstrated how a variety of elements, including low institutional trust and conspiratorial beliefs (Erisen et al., 2021) coupled with elite messages (Aytaç, Çarkoğlu, & Elçi, 2021), collective nostalgia (Elci, 2022), and overall anger about the general track of the country (Erisen, 2024) influence populist attitudes in the nation. Despite the fact that these studies explore the ideological preferences of how Turkish politics has turned into a damaging game of dichotomous differentiation between the polar opposite camps, previous research is quite limited in terms of the study of trust in science and scientists, which the present work addresses.

To provide an overview of the particular issues under investigation in the current study, we first present a Google Trends analysis. Figure 1 shows the Google searches over time for key concepts (that is, vaccines, COVID-19, climate change, and GMOs). We see that the public reaction to Google searches corresponds to the events taking place, especially with regard to the vaccine and climate-change-related events. As presented, the importance of COVID-19 is high at the time of data collection in the fall of 2020 in connection with the issue of vaccines. Second, the topic of vaccines comes up as a major research topic for the public in the summer months of 2021, at a time when the Turkish government signed a major contract with BioNTech to secure 120 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Third, in April 2022, the major rainfall-induced landslides that took place in the Black Sea region of the country—taking dozens of lives in the affected area—raised the importance of climate change as a subject. However, before these events, the salience of climate change remained idle from June 2020 to June 2023. Finally, with respect to GMOs, we see a fairly stable trend of disinterest in the Turkish public during the covered time frame. The lack of any trending movement in GMOs suggests the probability of weak coverage in traditional and social media outlets, potentially raising the issue of non-crystallized attitudes on the subject.

Hypotheses

Based on the previous theoretical foundation, our goal is to map out the associations across populist attitudes, misinformation, and trust in experts, scientists, and institutions. We begin with populist politics’ post-truth relativism, whereby facts are no longer relevant for political and social judgments, creating a level playing field for misinformation in its competition with correct information, which likely further erodes trust in those supplying accurate information. Our expectations about the connection between populism’s relationship with the information environment and how this relationship affects trust are what constitute the theoretical foundation of this article. The core of this approach is that we take misinformation at the center of associations, connecting populist attitudes with trust across various domains. However, given the complexity of associations, we take a step-wise approach to delineate each possible connection. With that, our first tests involve the direct association of whether misinformation and populist attitudes decrease trust in experts, scientists, and institutions separately. Thus, we propose the following hypotheses.

  

Following the earlier discussion, populist views might shape how people respond to the information environment and the suppliers of accurate fact-based information. In the meantime, being exposed to misinformation could influence trust in those supplying correct, and hence contradictory, information. We propose a model that could provide a snapshot of theoretical expectations about the approach of populism to information and how this affects trust. As the two previous hypotheses point to the direct effects between misinformation and trust and between populism and trust, separately, the literature has not adequately addressed the possibility that susceptibility to misinformation along with populism contributes to the decay of trust in experts and scientists. Thus, we seek to clarify the associational effects based on the expectation that populist attitudes increase the likelihood of adopting misinformation and indirectly lower trust through its impact on misinformation. With that goal in mind, we propose the following mediation hypothesis.

 

In line with the literature, one of the potential indicators of misinformation is social media use. The higher the consumption of social media, the higher the likelihood of exposure to and acceptance of misinformation (Enders et al., 2021; Erisen, 2022). This assumption does not necessarily indicate that social media could increase misinformation at all times. However, it may be one of the potential parameters of how misinformation could decrease trust levels as a result. Therefore, we expect that the frequent use of social media could increase misinformation acceptance, which could then reduce trust. To test this premise, we propose hypotheses of direct and indirect effects.

  

Following our theoretical expectations, we provide an association model that shows the expected connections between our variables of interest. Although part of our expectations relies on the linear effects of misinformation and populist attitudes across the domains of trust, the associational model presents all our expectations, as presented in Figure 2. First, we propose that populist attitudes are positively associated with misinformation. Second, and in turn, misinformation decreases trust in experts, scientists, and institutions. Third, in addition to these direct effects, we posit an indirect effect of populist attitudes through misinformation toward distinct types of trust. Finally, to better predict populist attitudes and misinformation, we introduce two relevant factors. Social media use increases the acceptance of misinformation, which in turn mediates the relationship between social media use and reduced trust in experts, scientists, and institutions.

Similarly, and in line with the theoretical expectations of populism, we control for ideology, increasing one’s tendency to adopt these attitudes (Erisen, 2024; Jungkunz, Fahey, & Hino, 2021). Together, we account for several potential associations in our analytical approach.

Data

A random probability representative sample of 2,340 participants was drawn from the Turkish population using household addresses obtained from the Turkish Statistics Institute. The sample was distributed across geographical areas and provinces according to the NUTS classification to cover the entire country, including urban and rural settlements. In total, 1,028 surveys were completed.²

Measures

Levels of trust

We rely on three related measures of trust: trust in experts, scientists, and institutions. Trust in experts relates to how much a person is “willing to rely on the layperson or the experts while making political decisions relevant to the public,” on a response scale ranging from 1 (Strongly rely on the layperson) to 5 (Strongly rely on the experts). Trust in scientists directly asks for the degree of trust in scientists on a response scale ranging from 1 (Not at all) to 7 (Strongly trust). Finally, trust in institutions captures six questions on a response scale ranging from 1 (Not at all) to 7 (Strongly trust) that refer to national institutions, including parliament, political parties, executive office, government, Ministry of Health and police (α = 0.89).

Degree of misinformation

We capture misinformation through four items previously used in earlier studies on the same domain of subject (e.g., Jerit, Paulsen, & Tucker, 2020). Three items refer to the correct responses given to the statements on vaccinations causing autism in children, climate change being a hoax, and GMOs being harmful to humans. Given that the survey was conducted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a fourth item is included in capturing whether the person knew that the COVID-19 virus appeared naturally. We next generated a measure counting the number of inaccurate pieces of information across these four domains.

Attachment to populist attitudes

Although populism has been under investigation for the last decade as a trait of politicians and political parties, recent studies propose the operationalization of populist attitudes at the individual level (Erisen et al., 2021; Hawkins, Carlin, Littvay, & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018; Wuttke et al., 2020). This research agenda has generated several scales that assess populist attitudes and the degree of support for populist parties across several countries (see, e.g., Akkerman et al., 2014; Castanho Silva et al., 2018; Schulz et al., 2017). According to this approach, populism is a set of political convictions that people have that can be identified and researched at the individual level.

Drawing on contemporary definitions of populism, Akkerman et al.’s (2014) work on populist attitudes has promoted these individual-level measures. The current study follows this methodology by assessing agreement with the following six statements on a 5-point scale, where higher values indicate greater agreement: “Politicians in the country’s parliament need to follow the will of the people”; “The people, and not politicians, should make our most important policy decisions”; “The political differences between the elite and the people are larger than the differences among the people”: “I would rather be represented by a citizen than by a specialized politician”; “Elected officials talk too much and take too little action”; and “What people call “compromise” in politics is really just selling out on one’s principles.” Confirmatory factor analysis for the scale showed that the six items were positively correlated with the latent populist attitude. The fit indices for these models (CFI = 0.84; TLI = 0.74; RMSEA = 0.08; α = 0.56) indicate a good but not fully adequate fit. Overall, these results allow us to generate a combined populist attitude scale.³

Social media use

We capture social media exposure by the degree of using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram during the day on a scale of 1 (Not at all) to 5 (A lot). We then combined the responses into a single scale (α = 0.75).

Control measures

Additional variables of interest included Ideology (Strongly Left = 1; Strongly Right = 10) and four common demographic measures: Gender (Female = 1); Income (14 categories), Education (9 categories); and Age in years.⁴

Results

Building upon our hypotheses, we explore the complex relationship between misinformation, populist attitudes, and trust in experts, scientists, and institutions as well as how social media use is related to reduced trust levels. We begin our analysis by examining the direct effects of misinformation and populist attitudes on trust, tackled separately. These associational tests allow us to understand the more complex tests in line with structural equation modeling (SEM) (Jöreskog, 1973; Kline, 2011) that will follow. Through our step-wise analytic strategy, we aim to unpack the nuanced pathways through which misinformation and populist attitudes erode trust in experts, scientists, and institutions.

Directional Effects

In line with our expectations, our primary task is to understand the association between misinformation and levels of trust. Figure 3 presents the robust effects between levels of misinformation and levels of trust for experts, scientists, and institutions. More specifically, misinformation, whether about vaccines that cause autism in children, GMOs that are harmful to humans, climate change that is not true, or the COVID-19 pandemic not being real, implies a significant reduction in trust across all three domains. In a similar vein, with a larger effect size, those who maintain populist attitudes equally exhibit distrust for experts, scientists, and institutions. Moreover, these relationships remain statistically distinguishable from zero, except for the effect of populist attitudes on trust in scientists, after including additional variables. Among the control variables, ideological leanings appear to influence one’s propensity to trust in scientists—as opposed to a layperson on issues of science—and institutions that maintain political and social stability in the country.⁵

It appears that misinformation and populist attitudes act independently of each other, lowering trust levels in all domains. In line with our expectations in the first two hypotheses, misinformation and heightened populist attitudes are important indicators of distrust. The effect of the populist attitude on reducing trust appears to be stronger in size, but the confidence intervals are too wide, reflecting the measurement-driven underlying construct of the concept. In contrast, misinformation with only four items has a narrower and thus more precise effect in reducing the levels of trust of experts, scientists, and institutions. Together, these findings support the first two proposed hypotheses.

In addition to the consistent effects of misinformation and populist attitudes, other individual-level indicators, particularly the use of social media and political ideology, help explain levels of trust. As already discussed, time spent on social media is one of the strongest correlates of misbelief, increasing the likelihood of exposure to misinformation. Moreover, as confirmed in multivariate analysis, ideology plays an important role in predicting trust. Although right-leaning individuals have greater trust in scientists and institutions, this finding requires further elaboration as we tackle both issues in the next section.

The Interplay of Misinformation and Populism on Trust

As the previous section explored the direct effects of the two main variables of interest, we find supporting evidence on the directionality of misinformation and populist attitudes toward trust across several domains. Next, we test the SEM model, which relies on the simultaneous estimation of causes and effects that are theoretically associated with each other (Kaplan, 2000; Kline, 2011). This approach allows us to test an entire model as well as the effects of individual parameters on several dependent variables. In line with our third hypothesis, we propose that populist attitudes indirectly decrease trust in experts, scientists, and institutions via the acceptance of misinformation. Coupled with these main direct and indirect effects, we expect social media use to be a motivator for one’s level of misinformation. We address these potential associations by running an SEM model with a robust fit (CFI = 0.98; TLI = 0.84; RMSEA = 0.08).

As presented in Figure 4, we find several interesting results in favor of our expectations⁶: First, we confirm the increasing effect of populist attitudes on levels of misinformation. As one attaches to populist values and ideals, that person is significantly more likely to accept misinformation (β = 0.12; p < .001) on the subjects of vaccines, GMOs, climate change, and COVID-19.

This finding reaffirms our initial results on the negative association between populist attitudes and misinformation. Second, the effects of misinformation significantly reduce trust across all domains examined. Misinformation greatly diminishes the likelihood of trusting experts (β = –0.12; p < .001), scientists (β = –0.08; p < .02), and institutions (β = –0.09; p < .001). These findings confirm our initial results, providing robust evidence that misinformation undermines public confidence in key social pillars. Furthermore, the models reveal a direct negative effect of populist attitudes in two of the three trust domains, toward experts (β = –0.17; p < .001) and institutions (β = –0.09; p < .001). These findings support the notion that populist attitudes not only fuel misinformation beliefs but also directly erode trust in experts, scientists, and institutions. In sum, all indirect effects of populist attitudes through misinformation on levels of trust are significant, trust in experts (β = –14.09; p < .01), trust in scientists (β = –8.86; p < .05), and trust in institutions (β = –10.25; p < .02). These results primarily align with our third hypothesis.

Third, addressing our final two hypotheses, we control for the extent to which social media use has an indirect effect on trust in experts, scientists, and institutions via misinformation acceptance. Initially, our results confirm that social media use significantly increases the likelihood of accepting misinformation (β = 0.09; p < .01), aligning with our fourth hypothesis. More importantly, our model reveals that social media use not only facilitates the acceptance of misinformation but also indirectly reduces trust through misinformation. Specifically, in favor of our fifth hypothesis, the indirect effects of social media, mediated through increased susceptibility to misinformation, significantly reduce trust in experts (β = –10.75; p < .03), scientists (β = –6.76; p < .08), and institutions (β = –7.82; p < .04). The total effect, accounting for the direct and indirect effects across these models, adds up to a robust effect (p < .001), changing levels of trust across the board. These findings underscore the potential role of social media use in shaping the informational landscape regarding science-related subjects and reducing public trust across critical domains.⁷

One possible interpretation of these findings is that the interplay of social media use with our theoretical expectations reveals insightful connections concerning the direct and indirect effects of misinformation on levels of trust. As anticipated, social media not only boosts the belief in misinformation but also influences how this misinformation subsequently alters trust in experts, scientists, and institutions. Furthermore, amplification of misinformation acceptance via social media exposure could be seen as a catalyst that accelerates the erosion of trust, highlighting the critical need for strategies to improve science literacy, promote critical thinking, and employ misinformation correction mechanisms on social media platforms.

Finally, we should also note that the right-wing ideology, which is based on conservative populist government, directly lowers populism (β = –0.20; p < .001). As earlier research indicates, depending on when the populist government is in power, the influence of ideology on populist attitudes differs (Erisen, 2024; Jungkunz et al., 2021). This finding on its own requires elaboration by future research, as it challenges some of the recent findings on populism in the case of Turkey.

Conclusion and Implications

This study sheds light on the prevalence of misinformation and populist attitudes among the Turkish public and their impact on levels of trust in experts, scientists, and institutions. We present a comprehensive model that centers misinformation in four domains relevant to examining trust in experts, scientists, and institutions. By integrating various bodies of literature—from misinformation and populist attitudes to trust—this work contributes to developing a trustbuilding model, especially regarding topics that are science-driven. To that end, our initial analysis indicates that the Turkish public exhibits relatively high levels of misinformation, particularly with regard to vaccinations, GMOs, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, our analysis of directional effects uncovers significant negative associations between misinformation and trust, as well as between populist attitudes and trust.

More importantly, misinformation and populist attitudes independently contribute to the reduction of trust, with misinformation demonstrating a more pronounced effect. This erosion of trust is extended by populist attitudes that often undermine the credibility of established knowledge and authoritative sources. Building on direct effects, our structural model delves into the interplay among populist attitudes, misinformation, and trust. We find compelling evidence supporting the expectation that populist attitudes foster misinformation beliefs, through which trust across various domains is further reduced. Overall, the model illustrates and empirically tests a complex network of associations, highlighting how these elements interact to impact trust.

In this mechanism, social media use plays a major role in shaping trust levels. In particular, our findings indicate that increased social media use heightens exposure to misinformation, which, in turn, exacerbates the erosion of trust. This result underscores the urgent need for comprehensive strategies aimed at enhancing science literacy and critical thinking among users. Additionally, we believe that these findings emphasize the importance of implementing effective misinformation correction mechanisms within social media platforms. These strategic interventions can effectively counter misinformation with the goal of re-establishing trust. Eventually, these efforts will be crucial for mitigating the negative impacts of misinformation and strengthening public trust in scientific and institutional authorities.

The potential contributions we may offer to public opinion scholarship include a better understanding of the structural connections between misinformation, populist attitudes, and trust across three domains. Our study explores the pathways through which social media triggers these dynamics, indicating varying degrees of impact on trust toward experts, scientists, and political institutions. Similarly, in connection to the scholarship on science communication, our findings contribute to the study of misinformation’s impact on scientific subjects. We examine the propensity of misinformation to reduce public trust in scientific institutions and authorities. Consequently, science communication is tasked with enhancing public engagement through strategies that promote critical evaluation of content.

Another contribution of this work is that we document a set of relationships in a non-Western setting, presenting further evidence for the external validity of the findings from different contextual settings on populism, misinformation, and trust. Despite the potential contextual differences between the Turkish case and other settings, the mechanism through which populist attitudes fuel misinformation to reduce trust in individuals and institutions appears to be applicable. Future research could certainly extend these results and further test the associations amongst these concepts relevant to trust-building and science communication.

In terms of policy implications, the insights gained from this study can potentially contribute to ongoing models of correcting misbeliefs. Policymakers must be aware of the negative impact that misinformation and populist attitudes have on public trust and the broader democratic fabric. The development of targeted interventions and correction tools that improve science literacy, particularly in social media, is crucial. These interventions could include programs that emphasize the importance of evidence-based reasoning and evaluate the quality of information sources. Moreover, there is a pressing need for collaborative efforts between governments, educational institutions, and media platforms to create frameworks to combat misinformation. Such policies would be essential to protect public discourse, preserve informed democratic engagement, and reinforce the social value placed on scientific expertise and scientists.

Finally, with regard to the limitations of our work, we acknowledge the observational nature of our data. All our interpretations should be taken within the confines of cross-sectional data analysis and the absence of a proper causal test. With that in mind, future research should investigate the underlying mechanisms and causal relationships via an experiment, exploring the connection between misinformation and science-driven trust building, controlling for potential individual-level differences. Understanding the drivers of misinformation and trust will be crucial in developing effective strategies to mitigate their negative consequences on public opinion and democratic processes.

Funding

Collection of the data in this research was supported by Yeditepe University within the scope of Research Projects and Scientific Activities (Project ID: YAP-BP-SOB-19014).

References

Biographical Notes

Cengiz Erisen’s interests lie in comparative public opinion, political psychology, and computational social sciences. He works as a Full Professor at Yeditepe University Department of Political Science and International Relations. His work has been published in various journals including Political Psychology, Journal of European Public Policy, American Behavioral Scientist, American Politics Research, European Union Politics, Journal of Common Market Studies, and Turkish Politics.

Elif Erisen’s interests lie in political psychology, public opinion, and quantitative research methods. She works as a Full Professor at Yeditepe University, Department of Public Administration and Department of Political Science and International Relations. Her work on climate misinformation and virtual reality, social networks, political psychology, research methods, motivated reasoning and cognition, public opinion, and immigrants has been published in journals such as Political Psychology, American Politics Research, European Union Politics, Journal of Common Market Studies, and Turkish Politics.

Footnotes