Age and gender peculiarities of the relationship between malevolent creativity and cognitive personality characteristics
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Context and relevance. The manifestation of malevolent creativity (MC) in fraud, corruption, disinformation, and conspiracy theories leaves the study of the relationship between creative thinking and behavior relevant. Objective. To study and analyze the relationship of MC with cognitive personality traits. Hypothesis. 1. The tendency to display malevolent creativity in harmful behavior is negatively associated with constructive thinking and positively associated with destructive thinking styles and difficulty processing incoming information; 2. This relationship has features depending on gender and age. Methods and materials. The sample consisted of 424 people, including students from Moscow universities N=156 people (M = 20.1, SD = 1.04, 49% of them girls) and adults N =266 people (M = 34.9, SD = 13.76, 59% of them women). The following methods were used: "Behavioral features of malevolent creativity" (adaptation by Meshkova et al.), S. Epstein's Constructive Thinking Questionnaire (adaptation by Yenikolopov and Lebedev), the BPAQ-24 hostility scale (adaptation by Yenikolopov and Tsybulsky), "Characteristics of the information and semantic field" (Zlokazov et al.). Results. The following patterns were identified: significant correlations of MC: 1. positive — with destructive thinking styles, hostility and the total indicator of the information and semantic field of personality (IMF), 2. negative - with the scale of general constructive thinking (GCT). Differences in the strength of the association of MC with cognitive characteristics by gender and age have been revealed. Men have significantly stronger bonds with GCT and MC than the female. The connection between MC and IMF is significantly stronger among young people compared to adults. Differences between the samples by gender and age have been established: young people and men have lower IMF and higher GCT compared to adults and women; young people and women have higher categorical thinking compared to men and adults. Conclusions. 1. People with a high propensity for MC have the following cognitive profile: low constructive thinking combined with high hostility, developed destructive thinking styles, impairments in the information and semantic field of personality, i.e. they do not know how to adjust their way of thinking to the requirements of the situation in order to act effectively, see the world only in black and white categories, are subject to generally accepted superstitions, believe in various omens, are insufficiently critical of incoming information, are more focused on avoiding failures, are suspicious, have difficulty processing incoming information because of its dynamism, redundancy, and heterogeneity. 2. MC is not the result of any one destructive style of thinking, but only one developed constructive thinking does not protect a person from having MC. Here, a balance is important not only for constructive and destructive styles of thinking, but also for other cognitive features. Men have the most developed component compared to women, constructive thinking, and, consequently, instability to stress, plays the greatest role as a predictor of high MC. In young people, the inability to navigate incoming information and choose constructive solutions (violations in the information and semantic field of personality) is the least developed compared to adults, but it has become a predictor of a tendency to behavior in which MC is realized. 3. The established differences and general patterns of cognitive characteristics between the samples by gender and age (youth and men have a lower total index of the information and semantic field and higher overall constructive thinking compared to adults and women; women and youth have a more developed destructive style in the form of categorical thinking compared to adults and men), as well as correlations with destructive thinking styles, allow us to identify those thinking styles that are not risk factors for the association of malevolent creativity and behavior in the age groups we studied (up to 50 years) — this is the naive optimism thinking style.
Source: Psychology and Law
Institution: Moscow State University of Psychology & Education
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: Russian Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W7214979700