People form political attitudes to serve psychological needs. Recent research shows that some
individuals have a strong desire to incite chaos when they perceive themselves to be marginalized by society. These individuals tend to see chaos as a way to invert the power structure and
gain social status in the process. Analyzing data ...
People form political attitudes to serve psychological needs. Recent research shows that some
individuals have a strong desire to incite chaos when they perceive themselves to be marginalized by society. These individuals tend to see chaos as a way to invert the power structure and
gain social status in the process. Analyzing data drawn from large-scale representative surveys
conducted in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we identify the
prevalence of Need for Chaos across Anglo-Saxon societies. Using Latent Profile Analysis, we
explore whether different subtypes underlie the uni-dimensional construct and find evidence
that some people may be motivated to seek out chaos because they want to rebuild society,
while others enjoy destruction for its own sake. We demonstrate that chaos-seekers are not a
unified political group but a divergent set of malcontents. Multiple pathways can lead individuals to “want to watch the world burn.”
