Joshua Hart’s research while affiliated with Union College and other places

Research on individual-difference factors predicting belief in conspiracy theories has proceeded along several independent lines that converge on a profile of conspiracy believers as individuals who are relatively untrusting, ideologically eccentric, concerned about personal safety, and prone to perceiving agency in actions and profundity in bullshit. The present research represents the first attempt at an integrative approach to testing the independent contributions of these diverse factors to conspiratorial thinking. Two studies (N = 1,253) found that schizotypy, dangerous-world beliefs, and bullshit receptivity independently and additively predict endorsement of generic (i.e., nonpartisan) conspiracy beliefs. Results suggest that "hyperactive" agency detection and political orientation (and related variables) might also play a role. The studies found no effects of situational threats (mortality salience or a sense of powerlessness) - though it remains to be seen whether real-world instantiations of situational threats might move some people to seek refuge in conspiratorial ideation.

Many studies demonstrate that mortality salience can increase negativity toward outgroups butfew have examined variables that mitigate this effect. The present research examined whethersubtly priming people to think of human experiences shared by people from diverse culturesincreases perceived similarity of members of different groups, which then reduces MS-inducednegativity toward outgroups. In Study 1, exposure to pictures of people from diverse culturesengaged in common human activities non-significantly reversed the effect of MS on implicitanti-Arab prejudice. In Study 2, thinking about similarities between one’s own favoritechildhood memories and those of people from other countries eliminated MS-induced explicitnegative attitudes toward immigrants. In Study 3, thinking about similarities between one’s ownpainful childhood memories and those of people from other countries eliminated the MS-inducedreduction in support for peace-making. Mediation analyses suggest the effects were driven byperceived similarity of people across cultures. These findings suggest that priming widely sharedhuman experiences can attenuate MS-induced intergroup conflict.

What individual factors predict success? We tested Chua and Rubenfeld's (2014) widely publicized “Triple Package” hypothesis that a tendency toward impulse control, personal insecurity, and a belief in the superiority of one's cultural or ethnic group combine to increase the odds that individuals will attain exceptional achievement. Consistent with previous research, we found in two sizable samples (combined N = 1258) that parents' level of education and individuals' own cognitive ability robustly predicted a composite measure of success that included income, education, and awards. Other factors such as impulse control and emotional stability also appeared to be salutary. But despite measuring personal insecurity in four different ways and measuring success in three different ways, we did not find support for any plausible version of Chua and Rubenfeld's proposed synergistic trinity of success-engendering personality traits.

Heterosexual men consistently overperceive women's sexual interest. Past studies have related overperception to individual and situational factors such as alcohol intoxication, but nobody has yet investigated personality factors that may contribute to sexual misperception. The present research takes a first step in that direction by examining the relation between attachment style and sexual misperception. Two studies revealed that men's romantic attachment anxiety and avoidance predicted the extent to which men estimated the sexual interest of a hypothetical woman in a nightclub scenario. Mediation analyses suggest that this is due to both motivated social perception and cognitive bias. Specifically, men's attachment anxiety predicts increased desire for intimacy, which predicts their hope that a woman will be sexually interested; consequently, men imagine themselves as more flirtatious in the scenario, which biases them toward imagining the woman as more flirtatious, too. A similar process occurred for attachment avoidance, but in the opposite direction.

Research on the relation between personality and styles of engagement with social media is surprisingly limited and has generated mixed results. The present research applied attachment theory to illuminate individual differences in styles of Facebook engagement. Two studies (N = 583) supported a mediational model explaining various forms of active Facebook use as stemming from attachment anxiety, which predisposes individuals to sensitivity about social feedback, thereby leading them to engage in attention-seeking social media behavior. These results held while controlling for extraversion, neuroticism, and self-esteem. Attachment avoidance predicted restrained Facebook use, primarily due to its association with (low) extraversion. These findings resolve inconsistencies in previous research and demonstrate that attachment theory is a particularly useful framework through which to study the influence of personality on social-media behavior.

Despite drawing on a common pool of data, observers of the 2012 presidential campaign came to different conclusions about whether, how, and to what extent "October surprise" Hurricane Sandy influenced the election. The present study used a mixed correlational and experimental design to assess the relation between, and effect of, the salience of Hurricane Sandy on attitudes and voting intentions regarding President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in a large sample of voting-aged adults. Results suggest that immediately following positive news coverage of Obama's handling of the storm's aftermath, Sandy's salience positively influenced attitudes toward Obama, but that by election day, reminders of the hurricane became a drag instead of a boon for the President. In addition to theoretical implications, this study provides an example of how to combine methodological approaches to help answer questions about the impact of unpredictable, large-scale events as they unfold.

According to theories of "psychological defense," humans are motivated to protect themselves against various types of psychological threat, including death awareness, uncertainty, and other inherently anxiety-provoking experiences. Protective mechanisms include strengthening close relationships; maintaining appraisals of self-worth, accomplishment, and agency; and cultivating meaningful views of the world. Thus, defensiveness theories incorporate research from many areas of psychology (e.g., information-processing biases, attitudes, and interpersonal and intergroup relations), to help explain why people think, feel, and act in the diverse ways that they do. Currently, the study of psychological defense is hindered by contradictory empirical results and a proliferation of theories that make very similar predictions. This article examines a cross-section of defensiveness theories and research, highlighting conclusions that can be drawn and areas where conceptual and research problems linger. It suggests that the field needs methodological innovation (e.g., more reliable and valid manipulations and measures of unconscious constructs, more diverse methodological approaches), a more complete and reliable body of data, and some fresh new ideas from psychological scientists across disciplines. © The Author(s) 2013.

In two studies, we examined how romantic attachment style relates to women's sexism toward men. Specifically, we applied structural equation modeling and mediation analyses to the responses of over 500 self-reported heterosexual women. Study 1 included 229 women who answered questionnaires tapping attachment anxiety and avoidance, ambivalent sexism toward men, romanticism, and interpersonal trust. We conducted Study 2 as a replication, changing questionnaire order to gauge the robustness of results, using a new sample of 273 women. In general, women's attachment anxiety predicted ambivalent sexism (both benevolence and hostility) toward men, whereas women's attachment avoidance predicted univalent hostility (and lower benevolence) toward men. Romanticism mediated attachment style's relationship to benevolence toward men, whereas lower interpersonal trust mediated attachment's relationship to hostility toward men. The results suggest that, for women (as for men), sexist attitudes toward members of the other sex have roots in attachment style and associated worldviews. Better understanding of women's ambivalence toward men in romantic relationships may help to inform marital therapy.

Merely contemplating one's death improves retention for entirely unrelated material learned subsequently. This "dying to remember" effect seems conceptually related to the survival processing effect, whereby processing items for their relevance to being stranded in the grasslands leads to recall superior to that of other deep processing control conditions. The present experiments directly compared survival processing scenarios with "death processing" scenarios. Results showed that when the survival and dying scenarios are closely matched on key dimensions, and possible congruency effects are controlled, the dying and survival scenarios produced equivalently high recall levels. We conclude that the available evidence (cf. Bell, Roer, & Buchner, 2013; Klein, 2012), while not definitive, is consistent with the possibility of overlapping mechanisms.