How Anti-Social Personality Traits and Anti-Establishment Views Promote Beliefs in Election Fraud, QAnon, and COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

• Author: Adam Enders,Casey Klofstad,Justin Stoler,Joseph E. Uscinski
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221139434
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

American Politics Research

2023, Vol. 51(2) 247–259

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X221139434

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How Anti-Social Personality Traits and

Anti-Establishment Views Promote Beliefs in

Election Fraud, QAnon, and COVID-19

Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

Adam Enders

1

, Casey Klofstad

2

, Justin Stoler

3

, and Joseph E. Uscinski

2



Abstract

Conspiracy theories and misinformation (CTM) became a salient feature of the Trump era. However, traditional explanations of

political attitudes and behaviors inadequately account for beliefs in CTM or the deleterious behaviors they are associated with.

Here, we integrate disparate literatures to explain beliefs in CTM regarding COVID-19, QAnon, and voter fraud. We aim to

provide a more holistic accounting, and to determine which political, psychological, and social factors are most associated with

such beliefs. Using a unique national survey, we f‌ind that anti-social personality traits, anti-establishment orientations, and

support for Donald Trump are more strongly related to beliefs in CTM than traditional left-right orientations or other

frequently posited factors, such as education, science literacy, and social media use. Our f‌indings encourage resear chers to

move beyond the traditional correlates of political behavior when examining beliefs that express anti-social tendencies or a deep

skepticism of social and political institutions.

Keywords

Donald Trump, dark triad, conspiracy theory, QAnon, COVID-19

Despite widespread corrective efforts, many Americans

continue to believe conspiracy theories and misinformation

(CTM) related to COVID-19, QAnon, and the 2020 U.S.

election (e.g., Arceneaux & Truex, 2022;Bierwiaczonek

et al., 2022;Enders et al., 2021c). Beliefs in CTM regard-

ing COVID-19 are closely associated with the utilization of

untested medical treatments (Tuccori et al., 2020), vaccine

hesitancy (Romer & Jamieson, 2020), the stockpiling of

weapons (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020), refusal to socially

distance and mask (Hornik et al., 2021), and numerous id-

iosyncratic instances of violence (Harper, 2021). The same is

true of beliefs in CTM about election fraud and QAnon: these

beliefs are associated with criminal activity (Collins, 2020),

violence (Bump, 2019), and the January 6, 2021 attack on the

U.S. Capitol (Armaly et al., 2022).

We argue that political behavior research, in its focus on

mainstream political elites (Zaller, 1992), mainstream parties

and ideologies (Campbell et al., 1960;Converse, 1964), and

the differences between those parties that promote (or are

promoted by) sorting and polarization (Mason, 2018), cannot

fully account for the aforementioned beliefs in CTM. To be

sure, traditional left-right political orientations play a role in

fomenting tensions and activating non-normative beliefs

(DiMaggio, 2022) and tendencies (Kalmoe & Mason, 2022).

Likewise, partisan motivated reasoning (Miller et al., 2016;

Pasek et al., 2014) and partisan elite cueing (Merkley &

Stecula, 2018;Uscinski et al., 2020) are both key mechanisms

by which some individuals come to believe in CTM––neither

of which is new to our understanding of mass opinion, and

both of which are driven by parties.

That said, to be a traditional partisan or liberal/

conservative, generally, is to be enmeshed in the political

establishment with mainstream beliefs (Enders & Uscinski,

2021b). Traditional conceptions of Republicanism and

conservatism have little to say little about the eff‌icacy of

vaccines, belief in the presence of Satanic baby-eaters among

elected off‌icials, and support for insurrections (Uscinski et al.,

2021). Likewise, past disagreements between parties and

ideologies––even relatively heated ones––have typically not

1

Political Science, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

2

Political Science, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA

3

Geography and Sustainable Development, University of Miami, Coral

Gables, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Joseph E. Uscinski, Political Science, University of Miami, 1300 Campo Sano

Bldg., Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA.

Email: uscinski@miami.edu