In 2018, a team of academics succeeded in publishing studies with critically flawed methodologies, crass language, and unsupported conclusions in major Social Science academic journals such as Hypatia, Fat Studies, and Sex Roles. One paper was even awarded as “leading scholarship.” The hoaxers hypothesized that their success was due to political bias in peer review, specifically a prioritization of politically-correct conclusions in these fields over scientific rigor. An ideologically- and politically-motivated methodology called Critical Social Science does appear to be influencing academia as a whole, particularly in the Social Sciences, and likely affects peer review as well. Critical Social Science explicitly presupposes conclusions and actively rejects critique, thus rejecting the entire paradigm of academic research and the scientific method itself. We sought to evaluate what individual differences might influence an individual to subscribe to this ideology including Liberal Ideology (LI) and Paranoid Egalitarian Meliorism (PEM). We presented 169 MTurk participants with summaries of the hoax articles and measured their agreement with the arguments as well as their willingness to share the articles. Then, we presented them with scientific rebuttals of the hoax arguments and measured changes in attitudes towards the original article, as well as towards the rebuttal researchers. We found that: confirmation bias most likely predicted high-LI individuals’ desire to disseminate the hoax articles, that high PEM individuals were far more denigrating towards simulated rebuttal researchers, and that high PEM individuals were far less likely to agree with or share the rebuttals. These findings implicate a possible individual difference explanation for the success of the Hoax Project and appear to identify an individual trait (PEM) that indicates rejection of iv scientific principles. The implications of high rates of PEM individuals in academic fields are discussed.