Clear associations between lower-order personality facets & conspiracy beliefs emerged; humility was also a significant negative correlate; those beliefs were also associated with a range of personality disorder features & internalizing symptoms

Bowes, Shauna, Thomas H. Costello, Winkie Ma, and scott lilienfeld. 2020. “Looking Under the Tinfoil Hat: Clarifying the Personological and Psychopathological Correlates of Conspiracy Beliefs.” PsyArXiv. March 4. doi:10.31234/osf.io/9pv38

Abstract
Objective: We sought to replicate and extend research on the personological correlates of conspiracy beliefs by examining their associations with abnormal- and normal-range personality domain-level traits and, for the first time, lower-order personality facets; we also examined internalizing symptoms.

Method: The study comprised four samples of community and student participants (Ntotal=1,927), and examined the cross-sectional relations between self-reported conspiratorial ideation and measures of (a) the six-factor model of general personality, (b) intellectual humility, (c) personality disorder traits (narcissism, psychopathy, disinhibition), and (d) internalizing symptoms (depression, anxiety, anger).

Results: Agreeableness and conscientiousness were significant negative correlates of conspiracy beliefs, although other general personality dimensions tended to manifest negligible associations. Significant associations between lower-order personality facets and conspiracy beliefs, not evident at the domain level, emerged. Indices of humility were also significant negative correlates. Conspiracy beliefs were also associated with a range of personality disorder features and internalizing symptoms.

Conclusions: Our results provisionally suggest that the nonclinical individual prone to conspiratorial ideation is likely to display distress, immodesty, impulsivity, and negative affect. Future research should investigate potential multiplicative relations among personological variables in predicting conspiracy beliefs.