Overconfident, resentful, and misinformed: How racial animus motivates confidence in false beliefs.

Objective: We examine the role of racial resentment in motivating Americans to express confidence in misinformed beliefs on racialized scientific issues. Methods: We study survey data from the 2020 American National Election Study. We examine respondents' endorsement of misinformation on different scientific issues and their reported confidence in these views. Results: We find that racial resentment plays a strong role in leading Americans to hold confidently misinformed views about highly racialized policy issues (e.g., the occurrence of anthropogenic climate change or the origins of the COVID‐19 pandemic), but not on less racialized issues (e.g., childhood vaccine safety). Conclusions: Our work underscores the often‐overlooked importance of intergroup attitudes in shaping overconfidence and helps resolve theoretical tensions in the study of misinformation acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]