Do People Prefer to Share Political Information That Boosts Their Ingroup or Derogates the Outgroup?

Recent analyses of social media activity indicate that outgroup animosity drives user engagement more than ingroup favoritism, with content that derogates the outgroup tending to generate more viral responses online. However, it is unclear whether those findings are due to most people’s underlying preferences or structural features of the social media landscape. To address this uncertainty, we conducted three experimental studies (Noverall = 609) to examine how intended impact (ingroup favoritism/outgroup derogation) influences intentions to share both true and false news posts among U.S. partisans who regularly use social media. Participants consistently preferred to share posts that favor their own party over those that denigrate the opposition—a preference that was largely maintained despite a manipulation of ingroup threat or a manipulated desire to share viral content in Studies 2 and 3. We discuss the influence of polarized politicians and their followers, malign actors, and social media algorithms as potential drivers of earlier results that highlight the virality of derogatory content.