The present research extended past correlational research (Harmon-Jones & Szymaniak, 2023) by manipulating the mediator – evil perceptions – in the relationship between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs. This past research revealed that trait anger correlated positively with conspiracy beliefs and with perceiving conspirators to have more evil intentions. Moreover, perceived evil intentions statistically mediated the relationship between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs. The current research first created a questionnaire to manipulate the evil intentions associated with relatively novel and unknown conspiracy theories (Study 1). Then, trait anger and other personality characteristics were measured along with beliefs in the low- and high-evil conspiracy theories (Study 2). Results revealed that trait anger correlated positively with beliefs in both types of conspiracy theories. Moreover, trait anger continued to predict belief in high-evil conspiracy theories when statistically controlling for belief in low-evil conspiracy theories. A general conspiracy mentality yielded similar results. Discussion focuses on how perceiving evil intentions in conspiracy theories may be one explanation for why trait anger relates to conspiracy beliefs.

中文翻译：

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对不同邪恶意图的阴谋论的信仰：与愤怒和其他特征的相关性

目前的研究通过操纵特质愤怒与阴谋信念之间的关系中的中介——邪恶的认知，扩展了过去的相关研究（Harmon-Jones & Szymaniak，2023）。过去的研究表明，特质愤怒与阴谋信念以及感知阴谋者有更多邪恶意图呈正相关。此外，从统计上看，感知到的邪恶意图调节了特质愤怒和阴谋信念之间的关系。当前的研究首先创建了一份调查问卷来操纵与相对新颖和未知的阴谋论相关的邪恶意图（研究 1）。然后，我们测量了特质愤怒和其他人格特征以及对低邪恶和高邪恶阴谋论的信仰（研究 2）。结果显示，特质愤怒与两种阴谋论的信念呈正相关。此外，当对低邪恶阴谋论的信仰进行统计控制时，特质愤怒继续预测对高邪恶阴谋论的信仰。普遍的阴谋心态也产生了类似的结果。讨论的重点是感知阴谋论中的邪恶意图如何可能成为特质愤怒与阴谋信仰相关的一种解释。