Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Suzanne Lease

Committee Member

Jia Wei Zhang

Committee Member

Madeline Brodt

Committee Member

Sara Bridges

Abstract

Conspiracy theories are defined generally as the belief that a ‘shadowy group’ or collective is intentionally acting against one’s in-group. The last decade has seen significant sociopolitical and socioeconomic shifts, with rising antidemocratic sentiment in democracies and the COVID-19 pandemic contributing to new research on conspiracy theories. Recent studies have consistently found that dark personality traits are positively associated with belief in conspiracy theories. Other studies have also documented the potential links between conspiracy theories and antidemocratic beliefs, actions, and subsequent political violence. The present study builds on previous work examining specific conspiracy theories by exploring the relationship of dark personality to the endorsement of political violence (antidemocratic actions) as mediated by conspiracy thinking. It was hypothesized that the dark personality characteristics would have significant and positive associations with antidemocratic actions and those relationships would be mediated by conspiracy mentality. Additionally, the mediation was hypothesized to be conditional on psychological distress moderating the effects between conspiracy and antidemocratic actions. The sample consisted of data from 306 adult Americans was gathered via CloudResearch Connect. While a representative sample was hoped to be obtained, the data suggested that the sample trended towards being well-educated, white, liberal-leaning, and of middle-upper class based on their self-reported socioeconomic status. Each scale met the standards for good validity, which was important given the relative newness of some of the study’s scales. All four dark personality characteristics had significant and positive relationships with antidemocratic actions. Conspiracy mentality was a partial mediator of most of the Dark Tetrad’s impact on antidemocratic actions, with the sole exception being subclinical psychopathy. Psychological distress did not moderate the impact of conspiracy mentality on antidemocratic actions. This undermines recent research’s findings that psychological distress could be an important variable in determining the antecedents of political violence. However, post hoc analyses did indicate that psychological distress possibly has a unique interaction with dark personality. Psychological distress successfully moderated the relationship between each of the Dark Tetrad and antidemocratic beliefs. Implications for future studies’ assessment of conspiracy, definition of antidemocratic beliefs, and the role of psychological distress in assessing for dark personality are discussed.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

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