Why Do Some People Believe in Conspiracy Theories? The Role of Dark and Honest Personalities

What drives some individuals to believe that the moon landing was faked or that shadowy elites or lizard people control the world? A new paper published in Personality and Individual Differences explores the darker side of personality in relation to conspiracy beliefs and offers some interesting insights that could help us understand (and eventually address) the growing appeal of conspiracist ideation.

In their preregistered study, Emely Voltz, Vera Scheuble-Cabrera, Henning Gibbons, and André Beauducel from the University of Bonn (Germany) examined how personality traits from the Dark Tetrad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism) and the HEXACO model relate to conspiracist ideation. Using structural equation modelling across two large German samples (total N = 669), they found that the general Dark Tetrad factor was a strong and consistent predictor of conspiracy beliefs. By modelling personality traits as interconnected psychological dimensions, the researchers were able to show that people who score higher on dark personality traits are significantly more likely to endorse conspiracy theories.

This matters because it suggests that conspiracist thinking may not just be about misinformation or social context, but also about deeper dispositional tendencies that shape how people interpret the world.

Psychopathy and sadism showed particularly robust associations, suggesting that people with lower empathy, callousness, or even enjoyment of cruelty may be more drawn to conspiracy explanations. Interestingly, personality traits linked to integrity such as low Honesty-Humility and low Agreeableness were also associated with stronger conspiracy beliefs. These findings add to a growing literature suggesting that personality plays a significant role in how people make sense of complex or threatening events.

Notably, some widely held assumptions didn’t hold up. The trait of Openness, once thought to drive interest in unusual ideas like conspiracies, was actually negatively associated with conspiracist ideation in both samples. Perhaps this is because intellectually curious individuals are more critical of misinformation.

To read the full paper and explore these findings in depth, visit the article on the Personality and Individual Differences website: On the dark side of conspiracy: Associations of dark tetrad and HEXACO personality traits with conspiracist ideation