Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2023-3
How Anti-Social Personality Traits and Anti-Establishment Views Promote Beliefs in Election Fraud,QAnon,and COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
Conspiracy theories and misinformation (CTM) became a salient feature of the Trump era. However, traditional explanations of political attitudes and behaviors inadequately account for beliefs in CTM or the deleterious behaviors they are associated with. Here, we integrate disparate literatures to explain beliefs in CTM regarding COVID-19, QAnon, and voter fraud. We aim to provide a more holistic accounting, and to determine which political, psychological, and social factors are most associated with such beliefs. Using a unique national survey, we find that anti-social personality traits, anti-establishment orientations, and support for Donald Trump are more strongly related to beliefs in CTM than traditional left-right orientations or other frequently posited factors, such as education, science literacy, and social media use. Our findings encourage researchers to move beyond the traditional correlates of political behavior when examining beliefs that express anti-social tendencies or a deep skepticism of social and political institutions.
ArceneauxK.GravelleT. B.OsmundsenM.PetersenM. B.ReiflerJ.ScottoT. J. (2021). Some people just want to watch the world burn: The prevalence, psychology and politics of the ‘need for chaos’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1822), 20200147. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0147
ArmalyM. T.BuckleyD. T.EndersA. M. (2022). Christian nationalism and political violence: Victimhood, racial identity, conspiracy, and support for the capitol attacks. Political Behavior, 44(2), 937–960. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y
4.
BakkerB. (2022). Personality approaches to political behavior. In Oxford handbook of political psychology. Oxford University Press.
BerinskyA.MargolisM. F.SancesM. W.WarshawC. (2021). Using screeners to measure respondent attention on self-administered surveys: Which items and how many?Political Science Research and Methods, 9(2), 430–437. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2019.53
7.
BerlinskiN.DoyleM.GuessA. M.LevyG.LyonsB.MontgomeryJ. M.NyhanB.ReiflerJ. (2021). The effects of unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud on confidence in elections. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2021.18.
8.
BierwiaczonekK.KunstJ. R.GundersenA. B. (2022). The role of conspiracy beliefs for COVID-19 prevention: A meta-analysis. Current Opinion in Psychology, 46(101346). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101346.
9.
BlumR. M.ParkerC. S. (2019). Trump-ing foreign affairs: Status threat and foreign policy preferences on the right. Perspectives on Politics, 17(3), 737–755. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592719000999
10.
BumpP. (2019). The murder of an alleged gangster on staten island loops in an unexpected figure: QAnon. Washington Post.
11.
CampbellA.ConverseP.MillerW.StokesD. (1960). The American voter (Unabridged Edition). University of Chicago Press.
ConradK. J.RileyB. B.ConradK. M.ChanY.-F.DennisM. L. (2010). Validation of the crime and violence scale (CVS) against the rasch measurement model including differences by gender, race, and age. Evaluation Review, 34(2), 83–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193841x10362162
15.
ConverseP. E. (1964). The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In ApterD. (Ed.), Ideology and discontent. Free Press.
16.
CoppockA.McClellanO. A. (2019). Validating the demographic, political, psychological, and experimental results obtained from a new source of online survey respondents. Research & Politics, 6(1), 2053168018822174. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168018822174
17.
DiMaggioA. R. (2022). Conspiracy theories and the manufacture of dissent: QAnon, the ‘Big Lie’, Covid-19, and the rise of rightwing propaganda. Critical Sociology, 48(6), 1025–1048. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205211073669
18.
DouglasK.UscinskiJ.SuttonR.CichockaA.NefesT.AngC. S.DeraviF. (2019). Understanding conspiracy theories. Advances in Political Psychology, 40(1), 3–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12568
19.
EndersA.UscinskiJ. (2021a). On modeling the social-psychological foundations of support for Donald Trump. American Politics Research, 49(6), 551–567. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211022188
20.
EndersA.UscinskiJ. (2021b). Are misinformation, anti-scientific claims, and conspiracy theories for political extremists?Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 24(4), 583–605. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220960805
21.
EndersA.UscinskiJ. (2021c). The role of anti-establishment orientations during the Trump presidency. The Forum, 19(1), 47–76. https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2021-0003
22.
EndersA.UscinskiJ. E.KlofstadC. A.PremaratneK.SeeligM. I.WuchtyS.MurthiM. N.FunchionJ. R. (2021b). The 2020 presidential election and beliefs about fraud: Continuity or change?Electoral Studies, 72(102366). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102366.
23.
EndersA.UscinskiJ.KlofstadC.SeeligM.WuchtyS.MurthiM.PremaratneK.FunchionJ. (2021a). Do conspiracy beliefs form a belief system? Examining the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 9(1), 255–271. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.5649
24.
EndersA.UscinskiJ.KlofstadC.WuchtyS.SeeligM.FunchionJ.MurthiM.PremaratneK.StolerJ. (2022). Who supports QAnon? A case study in political extremism. Journal of Politics, 84(3), 1844-1849. https://doi.org/10.1086/717850.
25.
EndersA.UscinskiJ. E.SeeligM. I.KlofstadC. A.WuchtyS.FunchionJ. R.MurthiM. N.PremaratneK.StolerJ. (2021c). The relationship between social media use and beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation. Political Behavior, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09734-6.
26.
GalD.RuckerD. D. (2010). When in doubt, shout! paradoxical influences of doubt on proselytizing. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1701–1707. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610385953
27.
GoreisA.VoracekM. (2019). A systematic review and meta-analysis of psychological research on conspiracy beliefs: Field characteristics, measurement instruments, and associations with personality traits. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 205. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00205.
GuessA.NyhanB.O’KeeffeZ.ReiflerJ. (2020a). The sources and correlates of exposure to vaccine-related (mis)information online. Vaccine, 38(49), 7799–7805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.10.018
30.
GuessA.NyhanB.ReiflerJ. (2020b). Exposure to untrustworthy websites in the 2016 US election. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(5), 472–480. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0833-x
HartW.RichardsonK.TortorielloG. K. (2018). Dark personality voters find dark politicians more relatable and fit for office. Journal of Research in Personality, 75, 59-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.05.007.
33.
HornikR.KikutA.JeschE.WokoC.SiegelL.KimK. (2021). Association of COVID-19 misinformation with face mask wearing and social distancing in a nationally representative US sample. Health Communication, 36(1), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1847437
34.
HughesS.MachanL. (2021). It’s a conspiracy: Covid-19 conspiracies link to psychopathy, Machiavellianism and collective narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 171(110559). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110559.
35.
ImhoffR.LambertyP. (2020). A bioweapon or a hoax? The link between distinct conspiracy beliefs about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and pandemic behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(8), 1110–1118. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620934692
36.
JohnsonJ. W. (2000). A heuristic method for estimating the relative weight of predictor variables in multiple regression. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 35(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327906MBR3501_1
37.
KalmoeN. P.MasonL. (2022). Radical American partisanship: Mapping violent hostility, its causes, and the consequences for democracy. University of Chicago Press.
38.
KlimstraT. A.JeronimusB. F.SijtsemaJ. J.DenissenJ. J. A. (2020). The unfolding dark side: Age trends in dark personality features. Journal of Research in Personality, 85(103915). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2020.103915.
39.
LantianA.MullerD.NurraC.KleinO.BerjotS.PantaziM. (2018). Stigmatized beliefs: Conspiracy theories, anticipated negative evaluation of the self, and fear of social exclusion. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(7), 939–954. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2498
40.
LiangJ. (2021). Shapley value: Shapley value regression for relative imporance of attributes. In Version 2.0.
41.
LipovetskyS. (2006). Entropy criterion in logistic regression and shapley value of predictors. Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods, 5(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.22237/jmasm/1146456480
42.
MasonL. (2018). Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. University of Chicago Press.
43.
MerkleyE.SteculaD. (2018). Party elites or manufactured doubt? The informational context of climate change polarization. Science Communication, 40(2), 258–274. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547018760334
44.
MillerJ. M.SaundersK. L.FarhartC. E. (2016). Conspiracy endorsement as motivated reasoning: The moderating roles of political knowledge and trust. American Journal of Political Science, 60(4), 824–844. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12234
OkamotoS.NiwaF.ShimizuK.SugimanT. (2001). The 2001 survey for public attitudes towards and understanding of science and technology in Japan (pp. 72). NISTEP Report.
PasekJ.StarkT. H.KrosnickJ. A.TompsonT. (2014). What motivates a conspiracy theory? Birther beliefs, partisanship, liberal-conservative ideology, and anti-black attitudes. Electoral Studies, 40, 482-489. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2014.09.009.
49.
PavlovićT.FrancR. (2021). Antiheroes fueled by injustice: Dark personality traits and perceived group relative deprivation in the prediction of violent extremism. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/19434472.2021.1930100.
50.
PennycookG.RandD. G. (2021). Examining false beliefs about voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 2(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-51.
51.
PetersonR. D.PalmerC. L. (2021). The dark is rising: Contrasting the dark triad and light triad on measures of political ambition and participation. Frontiers in Political Science, 3(60), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.657750.
52.
RomerD.JamiesonK. H. (2020). Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the US. Social Science & Medicine, 263, 113356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113356.
53.
RoozenbeekJ.van Der LindenS.NygrenT. (2020). Prebunking interventions based on “inoculation” theory can reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures. The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review, 1(2), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.37016//mr-2020-008.
54.
SantucciJ.DyckJ. J. (2022). The structure of American political discontent. Public Opinion Quarterly, 86(2), 381–392. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfac009
55.
SaundersK. L. (2017). The impact of elite frames and motivated reasoning on beliefs in a global warming conspiracy: The promise and limits of trust. Research & Politics, 4(3), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017717602
TrujilloK. L.CrowleyZ. (2022). Symbolic versus material concerns of rural consciousness in the United States. Political Geography, 96(1), 102658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102658
58.
TuccoriM.ConvertinoI.FerraroS.CappelloE.ValdiserraG.FocosiD.BlandizziC. (2020). The impact of the COVID-19 “infodemic” on drug-utilization behaviors: Implications for pharmacovigilance. Drug Safety, 43(8), 699–709. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-020-00965-w
59.
UscinskiJ.EndersA.SeeligM. I.KlofstadC. A.FunchionJ. R.EverettC.WuchtyS.PremaratneK.MurthiM. N. (2021). American politics in two dimensions: Partisan and ideological identities versus anti-establishment orientations. American Journal of Political Science, 65(4), 877–895. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12616
60.
UscinskiJ.EndersA. M.StefanW.KlofstadC.SeeligM.FunchionJ.MurthiM.PremaratneK.EverettC. (2020). Why do people believe COVID-19 conspiracy theories?The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review, 1, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-015.
61.
UscinskiJ.ParentJ. M. (2014). American conspiracy theories. Oxford University Press.
62.
van ProoijenJ.-W. (2017). Why education predicts decreased belief in conspiracy theories. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 31(1), 50–58. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3301
63.
ZallerJ. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
