The relationship between dark tetrad and conspiracy beliefs. No consistent results across three different samples from Slovakia

Abstract

The present study focused on whether Dark Tetrad characteristics (machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism) predict conspiracy beliefs (COVID-19 related and general) in the Slovak population. Three independent samples were used for the study. The first sample consisted of 804 (73.9% women) university students of the middle-sized Slovak university. The second sample consisted of 489 (61.2% women) Facebook users. The third group was recruited from an online panel of a research agency and included 600 respondents (49% women). The results provided different findings for the three research samples. Results showed that machiavellianism was a positive predictor of conspiracy beliefs (COVID-19 and general) among respondents from a research agency and a university (general only). Psychopathy positively predicted COVID-19 and general conspiracy beliefs only among respondents from the Facebook sample. Narcissism positively predicted COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs among university students. The results of the study suggest that there is no consistent pattern of relationship between Dark Tetrad and conspiracy beliefs across different samples in Slovakia. Future research should focus on whether these inconsistencies are due to sample characteristics or they express lack of stable relationships between these two psychological variables.