Question word-order influences on covariate effects: predicting zero-sum beliefs

Zero-sum-like statements have the form “The more of resource X for consumer A, the less of resource Y for consumer B” and these have four permutations, whereby {X, A} and {B, Y} exchange places, and/or “more” and “less” exchange places. Smithson and Shou (Front Psychol 7:984, 2016) found that these permutations strongly influence the endorsement of such statements. This paper reports two studies investigating personality traits as predictors of zero-sum endorsements, and whether their predictive performance is moderated by statement permutations. Social Dominance Orientation, Competitive World View, the Egocentricity subscale from the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, and the Interpersonal subscale from the Hare Self-Report Psychopathy Scale are shown to be positively associated with zero-sum endorsement, whereas none of the Big-5 personality factors are. Only the Egocentricity subscale’s effect is moderated by statement permutations, so that for high scores on the subscale, zero-sum endorsement is boosted in such a way that the permutation effects disappear. The paper concludes with a discussion of the methodological implications of attitude statement permutation effects.