Belief in conspiracy theories that differ in evil intentions: Correlations with anger and other traits

Abstract

The present research extended past correlational research (Harmon-Jones & Szymaniak, 2023) by manipulating the mediator – evil perceptions – in the relationship between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs. This past research revealed that trait anger correlated positively with conspiracy beliefs and with perceiving conspirators to have more evil intentions. Moreover, perceived evil intentions statistically mediated the relationship between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs. The current research first created a questionnaire to manipulate the evil intentions associated with relatively novel and unknown conspiracy theories (Study 1). Then, trait anger and other personality characteristics were measured along with beliefs in the low- and high-evil conspiracy theories (Study 2). Results revealed that trait anger correlated positively with beliefs in both types of conspiracy theories. Moreover, trait anger continued to predict belief in high-evil conspiracy theories when statistically controlling for belief in low-evil conspiracy theories. A general conspiracy mentality yielded similar results. Discussion focuses on how perceiving evil intentions in conspiracy theories may be one explanation for why trait anger relates to conspiracy beliefs.