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Cryptocurrency Investors More Likely to Self-Report ‘Dark Tetrad’ Personality Traits, Study Shows
The authors found that cryptocurrency investment and ownership tends to attract people who are more argumentative, anti-authoritarian, and who prefer to get their information from non-mainstream social media sites. Credit: Traxer, Unsplash, CC0 (creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
According to a study published on July 3, 2024 in the open access journal, cryptocurrency ownership may be associated with certain demographic and personality characteristics, as well as addiction to alternative or fringe social media sources. PLOS ONE by Shane Littrell of the University of Toronto, Canada, together with colleagues at the University of Miami, USA.
Anonymous trading and unregulated markets characterize cryptocurrency’s unique subculture. While some consider digital currency financially unreliable, hundreds of millions of global investors believe otherwise.
This study identified several political, psychological and social characteristics that differentiate Encrypt investors from abstainers. Existing studies (which generally include smaller sample sizes) profile cryptocurrency holders as psychologically non-normative and politically non-mainstream.
To test this, Littrell and colleagues surveyed 2,001 American adults in 2022, about 30% of whom answered “yes” to owning or having owned cryptocurrency. Participants reported demographic information and other responses that revealed their political, psychological, and social traits.
The researchers conducted several bivariate (two-variable) correlational analyses, which measured how strongly cryptocurrency ownership is associated with other variables individually, as well as a multivariate (multivariable) analysis. regression analysiswhich attempts to identify the most important variables for predicting cryptocurrency ownership.
Correlational analyses showed that cryptocurrency ownership is associated with belief in conspiracy theoriessupport for political extremism, identification with non-right-wing or non-left-wing political orientations (e.g., Christian nationalism), and the “Dark Tetrad” of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism).
The more holistic analysis revealed which self-reported qualities are most likely to predict cryptocurrency ownership, with the most strongly associated factor being reliance on marginal cryptocurrencies. social media news sources. Other strongly associated characteristics included masculinity, contentiousness, higher income, and feelings of victimhood.
In all survey dataCryptocurrency holders reported diverse political orientations and identities, with a mix of left- and right-wing leanings.
The researchers acknowledge that the correlations they identified are limited by their sample of participants and their self-reported characteristics, and cannot be interpreted as causal. Because of the strong correlation between social media and cryptocurrency ownership, they encourage future research on the influence of specific media or rhetoric on cryptocurrency ownership.
The authors add: “While our findings certainly do not apply to all cryptocurrency users, on average we found that cryptocurrency investments and property tends to attract the most polemical, anti-authoritarian people who prefer to get their information through non-traditional social networks average sites.
“There is still much work to be done in this area, but we hope that our study will help lay the foundation for future research to understand the psychological, political and behavioral factors associated with this growing financial movement.”
More information:
The political, psychological and social correlates of cryptocurrency ownership, PLoS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305178
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Public Library of Science
Citation: Cryptocurrency Investors More Likely to Self-Report ‘Dark Tetrad’ Personality Traits, Study Shows (2024, July 3) retrieved July 3, 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2024-07-cryptocurrency-investors-dark-tetrad-personality.html
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