Date of Award

4-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon

Abstract

Malevolent creativity is commonly defined as creativity that is intentionally used to cause harm on others, oneself, objects, or processes (Cropley et al., 2014). Malevolent creativity can manifest in various ways, for example, through the use of indirect aggression (e.g., social exclusion) and direct aggression (e.g., physical assault) (Baron & Richardson, 1994; Green et al., 1996). Despite its significance, there is limited research on how individuals evaluate the originality and harmfulness of aggressive ideas. The current research addresses this gap by examining how individuals perceive and evaluate the originality and harmfulness of ideas that exhibit direct and indirect aggression. In addition to this, existing research has examined how individual difference variables, such as gender and personality, impact malevolent creativity and idea evaluation (Lee & Dow, 2011; Silvia et al., 2011). However, there has been limited research examining how these individual difference variables interact and contribute to the formation of distinct profiles. Thus, it is proposed that different profiles of individual difference variables will influence how individuals evaluate indirect and directly aggressive malevolently creative solutions. To better understand the role that individual differences play in shaping evaluations of originality and harmfulness, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) identified distinct personality-based profiles that significantly influenced how participants evaluated these ideas. I conducted LPAs using the HEXACO traits, and another LPA with the Dark Triad traits, and across these analyses, various profiles emerged which were used to identify how certain combinations of traits might influence how one evaluates originality and harmfulness.

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