Conspiracies Gone Wild: A Psychiatric Perspective on Conspiracy Theory Belief, Mental Illness, and the Potential for Lone Actor Ideological Violence

ABSTRACT

Conspiracy theory belief (CTB) has been increasingly recognized as a driving force of extremist violence. This paper provides a psychiatric perspective on the phenomenon of CTB-driven violence in an effort to bridge the gap between psychiatry and terrorism studies. First, it makes a case for the growing relevance of CTB to ideologically-motivated violence and lone actor violence in particular. Next, acknowledging common themes of shadowy forces, clandestine plots, and malevolent motives, it argues that CTB can be reliably disentangled from delusional belief and examines the association between mental illness and terrorism with a critical and skeptical eye. Finally, after reviewing the association between CTB and terrorist radicalization within existing models from psychiatry and terrorism studies, it outlines five stages of ideological commitment to characterize the link between CTB and the perpetration of ideological violence. Rather than alternately “explaining” terrorism on the basis of mental illness or “blaming” it on ideological extremism depending on biased attributions, modeling ideological commitment through a normalizing cognitive and socio-epistemic framework can facilitate a less stigmatizing understanding of the link between CTB and ideologically-motivated violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Conspiracy theories
• delusions
• delusion-like beliefs
• extreme over-valued beliefs
• ideological commitment
• ideological violence
• radicalization
• extremism
• terrorism
• lone actor terrorism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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77. Rahman, “Extreme Overvalued Beliefs,” 33.

78. Holoyda, “The QAnon Conspiracy Theory and the Assessment of its Believers”; Pierre, “Forensic Psychiatry Versus the Variety of Delusion-Like Beliefs.”

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82. Jennifer Varriale Carson and Noah Daniel Turner, “The Role of Ideology in Terrorist Attack Intentions and Outcomes,” Terrorism and Political Violence 36, no. 1 (2024): 90–112, doi: 10.1080/09546553.2022.2117619.

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87. Monica Lloyd, “Extremism Risk Assessment: A Directory,” Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats, March 11, 2019, https://crestresearch.ac.uk/resources/extremism-risk-assessment-directory.

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90. Holoyda, “The QAnon Conspiracy Theory and the Assessment of its Believers.”

91. Moskalenko and McCauley, “QAnon: Radical Opinion Versus Radical Action.”

92. Randy Borum, “Radicalization into Violent Extremism I: A Review of Social Science Theories,” Journal of Strategic Security 4, no. 4 (2011): 7–36, doi: 10.5038/1944-0472.4.4.1.

93. Blanka Rip, Robert J. Vallerand, and Marc-André K. Lafrenière, “Passion for a Cause, Passion for a Creed: On Ideological Passion, Identity Threat, and Extremism,” Journal of Personality 80, no. 3 (2012): 573–602, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2011.00743.x; Jan-Willem van Prooijen and André P. M. Krouwel, “Psychological Features of Extreme Political Ideologies,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 28, no. 2 (2019): 159–63, doi: 10.1177/0963721418817755; David Webber, Arie Kruglanski, Erica Molinario, and Katarzyna Jasko, “Ideologies that Justify Political Violence,” Current Opinion in Behavioral Science 34 (2020): 107–11, doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.01.004.

94. John T. Jost, Christopher M. Federico, and Jaime L. Napier, “Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions, and Elective Affinities,” Annual Review of Psychology 60 (2009): 307–37, doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163600.

95. Robert S. Erikson and Kent L. Tedin, American Public Opinion: Its Origins, Content and Impact, 10th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2019).

96. Colin Klein, Peter Clutton, and Adam G. Dunn, “Pathways to Conspiracy Theory: The Social and Linguistic Precursors of Involvement in Reddit’s Conspiracy Theory Forum,” PLoS One 14 (2019): e0225098, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225098.

97. Marius H. Raab, Stefan A. Ortlieb, Nikolas Auer, Klara Guthmann, and Claus-Christian Carbon, “Thirty Shades of Truth: Conspiracy Theories as Stories of Individuation, Not of Pathological Delusion,” Frontiers in Psychology 4 (2013): 406, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00406.

98. Moghaddam, “The Staircase to Terrorism”; Asal and Rethmeye, “Dillettantes, Ideologues, and the Weak”; McCauley and Moskalenko, “Toward a Profile of Long Wolf Terrorists”; Orlandrew E. Danzell and Lisandra M. Maisonet Montanez, “Understanding the Lone Wolf Terror Phenomenon: Assessing Current Profiles,” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 8, no. 2 (2016): 135–59, doi: 10.1080/19434472.2015.1070189.

99. Schuurman and Taylor, “Reconsidering Radicalization.”

100. Bradley Franks, Adrian Bangerter, Martin W. Bauer, Matthew Hall, and Mark C. Noort, “Beyond ‘Monologicality’? Exploring Conspiracist Worldviews,” Frontiers in Psychology 8 (2017): 861, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00861.

101. Mikhaeil and Baskerville, “Explaining Online Conspiracy Theory Radicalization.”

102. Colton R. Westmark and Adam M. McMahon, “Identifying Conspiracy Theory Adherent Types,” New Political Science 44, no. 4 (2022): 607–27, doi: 10.1080/07393148.2022.2129927.

103. Robbie M. Sutton and Karen M. Douglas, “Rabbit Hole Syndrome: Inadvertent, Accelerating, and Entrenched Commitment to Conspiracy Beliefs,” Current Opinion in Psychology 48 (2022): 101462, doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101462.

104. Imhoff et al., “Resolving the Puzzle of Conspiracy Worldview and Political Activism.”

105. Pierre, “Conspiracy Theory Belief”; Pierre, “Delusions and Conspiracy Theories”; Pierre, “Down the Conspiracy Theory Rabbit Hole.”

106. Franks et al., “Beyond ‘Monologicality’?”

107. Linda J. Skitka and Christopher W. Bauman, “Moral Conviction and Political Engagement,” Political Psychology 29, no. 1 (2008): 29–54; Linda Skitka and G. Scott Morgan, “The Social and Political Implications of Moral Conviction,” Advances in Political Psychology 35, no. S1 (2014): 95–110, doi: 10.1111/pops.12166; Maarten P. Zaal, Colette Van Laar, Tomas Ståhl, Naomi Ellemers, and Belle Derks, “By Any Means Necessary: The Effects of Regulatory Focus and Moral Conviction on Hostile and Benevolent Forms of Collective Action,” British Journal of Social Psychology 50, no. 4 (2011): 670–89, doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02069.x; Marlon Mooijman, Joe Hoover, Ying Lin, Heng Ji, and Morteza Dehghani, “Moralization in Social Networks and the Emergence of Violence During Protests,” Nature Human Behavior 2 (2018): 389–96, doi: 10.1038/s41562-018-0353-0; Clara Pretus, Jennifer L. Ray, Yael Granot, William A. Cunningham, and Jay J. Van Bavel, “The Psychology of Hate: Moral Concerns Differentiate Hate from Dislike,” European Journal of Social Psychology 53, no. 2 (2023): 336–53, doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2906.

108. Filip Uzarevic and Thomas J. Coleman III, “The Psychology of Nonbelievers,” Current Opinion in Psychology 40 (2021): 131–38, doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.08.026.

109. Pierre, “Conspiracy Theory Belief”; Leor Zmigrod, “A Psychology of Ideology: Unpacking the Psychological Science of Ideological Thinking,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 17, no. 4 (2022): 1072–92, doi: 10.1177/17456916211,044140.

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112. Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1951).

113. Basit, “Conspiracy Theories and Violent Extremism”; Kruglanski et al., “Terrorism and Conspiracy Theories”; Arie W. Kruglanski, Michele J. Gelfand, Jocelyn J. Bélanger, Anna Sheveland, Malkanthi Hetiarachchi, and Rohan Gunaratna, “The Psychology of Radicalization and Deradicalization: How Significance Quest Impacts Violent Extremism,” Advances in Political Psychology 35, no. S1 (2014): 69–93, doi: 10.1111/pops.12163.

114. Leor Zmigrod, Peter Jason Rentfrow, and Trevor Robbins, “Cognitive Inflexibility Predicts Extremist Attitudes,” Frontiers in Psychology 10 (2019): 989, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00989.

115. See note 101 above.

116. McCauley and Moskalenko, “Toward a Profile of Long Wolf Terrorists.”

117. Ibid., 73.

118. Moghaddam, “The Staircase to Terrorism”; Webber and Kruglanski, “Psychological Factors in Radicalization”; Borum et al., “A Dimensional Approach to Analyzing Lone Offender Terrorism”; Khalil et al., “The Attitudes-Behaviors Corrective (ABC) Model of Violent Extremism”; McCauley and Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization”; McCauley and Moskalenko, “Toward a Profile of Long Wolf Terrorists”; Rip et al., “Passion for a Cause, Passion for a Creed”; Kruglanski et al., “The Psychology of Radicalization and Deradicalization”; Kees van den Bos, “Unfairness and Radicalization,” Annual Review of Psychology 71 (2020): 563–88, doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010419-050953.

119. Bartlett and Miller, The Power of Unreason, Conspiracy Theories, Extremism and Counter-Terrorism; Webber et al., “Ideologies that Justify Political Violence.”

120. Jeremy Ginges, Scott Atran, Sonya Sachdeva, and Douglas Medin, “Psychology Out of the Laboratory: The Challenge of Violent Extremism,” American Psychologist 66, no. 6 (2011): 507–19, doi: 10.1037/a0024715.

121. Joseph M. Pierre, “Culturally Sanctioned Suicide: Euthanasia, Seppuku, and Terrorist Martyrdom,” World Journal of Psychiatry 5, no. 1 (2015): 4–14, doi: 10.5498%2Fwjp.v5.i1.4.

122. McCauley and Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization”; John Horgan, “Deradicalization or Disengagement? A Process in Need of Clarity and a Counterterrorism Initiative in Need of Evaluation,” Perspectives on Terrorism 2, no. 4 (2008): 3–8.

123. Pierre, “Down the Conspiracy Theory Rabbit Hole”; Pierre, “Conspiracy Theory Belief”; Pierre, “Delusions and Conspiracy Theories”; M. Rousselet, O. Duretete, J. B. Hardoiuin, and M. Grall-Bronnec, “Cult Membership: What Factors Contribute to Joining or Leaving?” Psychiatry Research 257 (2017): 27–23, doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.07.018.

124. Gill et al., “The Equifinality and Multifinality of Violent Radicalization and Mental Health.”

125. Pierre, “Integrating Non-Psychiatric Models of Delusion-Like Beliefs into Forensic Psychiatric Assessment”; Pierre, “Mistrust and Misinformation.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph M. Pierre

Joseph M. Pierre is a psychiatrist and a Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, San Francisco. In addition to his clinical work treating individuals hospitalized with severe mental illness, his academic work focuses on the grey area between psychopathology and normality with an emphasis on delusion-like beliefs including conspiracy theories. He also serves as an expert witness consultant in forensic cases involving the intersection of psychosis, religion, and ideological belief.