The relationship between personality traits, locus of control and the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories

Živković, Anamaria. (2018). The relationship between personality traits, locus of control and the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Butković, Ana].

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Abstract

The aim of this research was to explore the relationship between personality traits, locus of control and sociodemographic variables with the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. This research was conducted online on 291 participants heterogenous by sex, age, education and socioeconomic status. Data were collected by the HEXACO-60 personality inventory, Rotter's internal-external locus of control scale and the Belief in conspiracy theories scale. Results show that extraversion, external locus of control and age positively correlate with the tendency to believe in conspiracies, while no correlation has been found for other personality traits. On the facet level, a positive correlation has been found between social boldness, friendliness, liveliness and sentimentality with the tendency to believe in conspiracies. Age, socioeconomic status, extraversion and locus of control were also found to be significant predictors of the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories, explaining 15% of variance.

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