Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:04:58.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - Cognitive Processes, Biases, and Traits That Fuel QAnon

from Part II - Recruiting and Maintaining Followers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2023

Monica K. Miller
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Reno
Get access

Summary

Much effort has been spent trying to determine who ‘Q’ is, yet little is known about the characteristics of who follows ‘Q’ and QAnon. This chapter discusses the cognitive processes, cognitive biases, and traits (e.g., beliefs and individual characteristics) possibly associated with QAnon followers. Cognitive processes such as delusional ideation, teleological thinking, cognitive closure, and Pierre’s (2020) socio-epistemic model are examined in the context of QAnon followers, along with a variety of cognitive biases (e.g., groupthink, confirmation bias, jumping to conclusions bias). Additionally, traits such as being racist (e.g., holding anti-Black and anti-Semitic attitudes), narcissism, Machiavellianism, and political affiliations are possible common traits among QAnon followers. A brief discussion of how QAnon is similar or different from other groups (e.g., conspiracy or religious groups) is offered, along with some research questions for future study about QAnon specifically. This understanding is crucial, especially as QAnon followers are gaining political power and agency.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Social Science of QAnon
A New Social and Political Phenomenon
, pp. 49 - 67
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrams, Z. (2020, November 18). What do we know about conspiracy theories? American Psychological Association. www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/11/conspiracy-theoriesGoogle Scholar
Aïn, S. E., Carré, A., Fantini-Hauwel, C., Baudouin, J. Y., & Besche-Richard, C. (2013). What is the emotional core of the multidimensional Machiavellian personality trait? Frontiers in Psychology, 4(1), 454.Google Scholar
Amarasingam, A., & Argentino, M.-A. (2020). The QAnon conspiracy theory: A security threat in the making? Combating Terrorism Center, 13(7). https://ctc.usma.edu/the-qanon-conspiracy-theory-a-security-threat-in-the-making/Google Scholar
Anti-Defamation League. (n.d.a). Blood Libel: A False, Incendiary Claim Against Jews. www.adl.org/education/resources/glossary-terms/blood-libelGoogle Scholar
Anti-Defamation League. (n.d.b). The dangers of disinformation. www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/the-dangers-of-disinformationGoogle Scholar
Anti-Defamation League. (n.d.c). QAnon. www.adl.org/qanonGoogle Scholar
Anti-Defamation League. (2021, April 19). “The Great Replacement”: An explainer. www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/the-great-replacement-an-explainerGoogle Scholar
Bloom, M. (2020, May 30). Far-right infiltrators and agitators in George Floyd protests: Indicators of white supremacists. Just Security. www.justsecurity.org/70497/far-right-infiltrators-and-agitators-in-george-floyd-protests-indicators-of-white-supremacists/Google Scholar
Bloom, M. (2021, July 5). We knew QAnon is anti-Semitic. Now, we know it’s racist, too. Bulletin for Atomic Scientists. www.google.com/amp/s/thebulletin.org/2021/07/we-knew-qanon-is-anti-semitic-now-we-know-its-racist-too/amp/Google Scholar
Bowes, S. M., Costello, T. H., Ma, W., & Lilenfield, S. O. (2020). Looking under the tinfoil hat: Clarifying the personological and psychopathological correlates of conspiracy theories. Journal of Personality, 89(3), 422436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bracewell, L. (2021). Gender, populism, and the QAnon conspiracy movement. Frontiers in Sociology, 5, 615727.Google Scholar
Bratich, J. (2020, October 23). Rutgers expert explains QAnon. Rutgers Today: Research & Innovation. www.rutgers.edu/news/rutgers-expert-explains-qanonGoogle Scholar
Brockell, G. (2021, March 4). Why March 4 matters to QAnon extremists, leading to fears of another Capitol attack. The Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/03/03/march-4-qanon-trump-inauguration/Google Scholar
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, July 1). Identifying the source of the outbreak. www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/about-epidemiology/identifying-source-outbreak.htmlGoogle Scholar
Chandler, K. J. (2020). Where we go 1 we go all: A public discourse analysis of QAnon. McNair Scholars Research, 13(1). https://commons.emich.edu/mcnair/vol13/iss1/4Google Scholar
Cichocka, A., Marchlewska, M., & Golec de Zavala, A. (2015). Does self-love or self-hate predict conspiracy theories? Narcissism, self-esteem, and endorsement of conspiracy theory. Social Psychology and Personality Science, 7(2), 157166.Google Scholar
Cox, D. A. (2021, March 4). Social isolation and community disconnection are not spurring conspiracy theories. Survey Center on American Life. www.americansurveycenter.org/research/social-isolation-and-community-disconnection-are-not-spurring-conspiracy-theories/Google Scholar
Crews, G. (2021). Folie à Deux in the 21st century: QAnon and the American dream delusion. In Bentch, C. S. & Crews, G. A. (Eds.), Mitigating mass violence and managing threats in contemporary society (pp. 7584). IGI Global.Google Scholar
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. (2020, November 12). Joint statement from Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council & the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees. www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-electionGoogle Scholar
Dagnall, N., Drinkwater, K., Parker, A., Denovan, D., & Parton, M. (2015). Conspiracy theory and cognitive style: A worldview. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 206.Google Scholar
Dickson, E. J. (2020, September 23). Former QAnon followers explain what drew them in – And got them out. Rolling Stone. www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ex-qanon-followers-cult-conspiracy-theory-pizzagate-1064076/amp/Google Scholar
Domonoske, C. (2020, August 12). QAnon supporter who made bigoted videos win GA. primary, likely heading to Congress. NPR. www.npr.org/2020/08/12/901628541/qanon-supporter-who-made-bigoted-videos-wins-ga-primary-likely-heading-to-congreGoogle Scholar
Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017). The psychology of conspiracy theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538542.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019). Understanding conspiracy theories. Political Psychology, 40(1), 335.Google Scholar
Enders, A. M., Uscinski, J. E., Klofstad, C. A., Wuchty, S., Seelig, M. I., Funchion, J. R., Murthi, M. N., Premaratne, K., & Stoler, J. (2022). Who supports QAnon? A case study in political extremism. Journal of Politics, 84(3), https://doi.org/10.1086/717850CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischele, M. (2000). Mass response to the Lewinski Scandal: Motivated reasoning or Bayesian updating? International Society of Political Psychology, 21(1) 135156.Google Scholar
Friedman, R. A. (2021). Why humans are vulnerable to conspiracy theories. Psychiatric Services, 72(1), 34.Google Scholar
Frost, P., Casey, B., Griffin, K., Raymundo, L., Farrell, C., & Carrigan, R. (2015). The influence of confirmation bias on memory and source monitoring. Journal of General Psychology, 142(4), 238252.Google Scholar
Garrett, R., & Bond, R. M. (2021). Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions. Science Advances, 7(23), eabf1234.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garry, A., Walther, S., Mohamed, R., & Mohammed, A. (2021). QAnon conspiracy theory: Examining its evolution and mechanisms of radicalization. Journal for Deradicalization, 26, 152216.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, A., Riggleman, D., Baumgartner, J., March, L., Reid-Ross, A., & Finkelstein, J. (2020). The QAnon conspiracy: Destroying families, dividing communities, undermining democracy. Network Contagion Research Institute. https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-%E2%80%93-The-QAnon-Conspiracy-FINAL.pdfGoogle Scholar
Greene, C. M., & Murphy, G. (2021). Quantifying the effects of fake news on behavior: Evidence from a study of COVID-19 misinformation. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 27(4), 773784.Google Scholar
Halpern, D., Valenzuela, S., Katz, J., & Miranda, J. P. (2019). From belief in conspiracy theories to trust in others: Which factors influence exposure, believing, and sharing of fake news. In Meiselwitz, G. (Ed.), Social computing and social media. Design, human behavior and analytics (pp. 217232). HCII 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11578. Springer.Google Scholar
Hughes, S., & Machan, L. (2021). It’s a conspiracy: COVID-19 conspiracies link to psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and collective narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 171, 110559.Google Scholar
Human Trafficking Search. (2014). Human trafficking: Not all black or white. https://humantraffickingsearch.org/human-trafficking-not-all-black-or-white/Google Scholar
Imhoff, R., & Lamberty, P. K. (2018). How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Toward a more fine-grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48, 909926.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingram, M. (2020, August 13). The QAnon cult is growing and the media is helping. Columbia Journalism Review. www.cjr.org/the_media_today/the-qanon-conspiracy-cult-is-growing-and-the-media-is-helping.phpGoogle Scholar
Janis, I. L. (2007). Groupthink. In Vecchio, R. P. (Ed.), Leadership: Understanding the dynamics of power and influence in organizations (2nd ed., pp. 157169). University of Notre Dame Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jhangiani, R., & Tarry, H. (2014). Principles of social psychology. BC Campus.Google Scholar
Johnstone, K. M., Chen, J., & Balzan, R. P. (2017). An investigation into the jumping-to-conclusions bias in social anxiety. Consciousness and Cognition, 48, 5565.Google Scholar
Kiran, C., & Chaudhury, S. (2009). Understanding delusions. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 18(1), 318.Google Scholar
Klar, R. (2021, March 15). Facebook study finds overlap between vaccine hesitancy and QAnon. The Hill. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/543273-facebook-study-finds-overlap-between-vaccine-hesitancy-and-qanonGoogle Scholar
Klepper, D. (2021, January 29). Checked by reality, some QAnon supporters seek a way out. Associated Press: PBS News. www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/checked-by-reality-some-qanon-supporters-seek-a-way-outGoogle Scholar
Krch, D. (2011). Cognitive processing. In Kreutzer, J. S., DeLuca, J., & Caplan, B. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of clinical neuropsychology (p. 627). Springer.Google Scholar
Lazer, D., Baum, M., Benkler, Y., Berinsky, A., Greenhill, K., Menczer, F., Metzger, M. J., Nyhan, B., Pennycook, G., Rothschild, D., Schudson, M., Sloman, S. A., Sunstein, C. R., Thorson, E. A., Watts, D. J., & Zittrain, J. (2018). The science of fake news. Science, 359(6380), 24.Google Scholar
Lee, M. (2020, October 5). Poll: Many Americans blame virus crises on U.S. government. The Associated Press. https://apnorc.org/poll-many-americans-blame-virus-crisis-on-us-government/Google Scholar
Lee, Y. (2019). Groupthink as a system of the decision making process. Applied Psychology Opus. https://wp.nyu.edu/steinhardt-appsych_opus/groupthink/Google Scholar
Mak, A. (2021, January 13). Where MAGA insurrectionists and QAnon followers will post now. Slate. https://slate.com/technology/2021/01/twitter-facebook-parler-gab-telegram-maga-qanon.htmlGoogle Scholar
Marwick, A., & Partin, W. C. (2020). The construction of alternative facts: “QAnon” researchers as scientistic selves. Paper presented at AoIR 2020: The 21st Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Virtual event: AoIR. http://spir.aior.orgGoogle Scholar
McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2010). How cognitive biases affect our interpretation of political messages. British Medical Journal, 340(7753), 936937.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meller, T. (2002). Agency panic and the culture of conspiracy. In Knight, P. (Ed.), Conspiracy nation: The politics of paranoia in post-war America (pp. 5781). NYU Press.Google Scholar
Meterko, V. (2021, August 19). What is cognitive bias and how does it contribute to wrongful conviction. Innocence Project. https://innocenceproject.org/what-is-cognitive-bias-how-it-contributes-to-wrongful-conviction/Google Scholar
Metz, S. E., Weisberg, D. S., & Weisberg, M. (2020). A case of sustained internal contradiction: Unresolved ambivalence between evolution and creationism. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 20(3–4), 338354.Google Scholar
Miller, D. T. (2021). Characterizing QAnon: Analysis of YouTube comments presents new conclusions about a popular conservative conspiracy. First Monday, 26(2). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i2.10168Google Scholar
Moore, R. (2018, November 22). Lucky 17, Q, and the “tippy top” White House: How conspiracy theories are being turbo-charged in Trump’s America. ITV News. www.itv.com/news/2018-11-22/lucky-17-q-and-the-tippy-top-president-how-conspiracy-theories-are-being-turbo-charged-into-donald-trumps-americaGoogle Scholar
Moskalenko, S., & McCauley, C. (2021). QAnon: Radical opinion versus radical action. Perspectives on Terrorism, 15(2), 142146.Google Scholar
Mosley, T., & Raphelson, S. (2021, January 29). Who is Marjorie Taylor Green? What the Congresswoman’s rise means for the future of the GOP. Wbur. www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/01/29/marjorie-taylor-greene-gopGoogle Scholar
Murata, A., Nakamura, T., & Karwoski, W. (2015). Influences of cognitive biases in distorted decision making and leading to critical unfavorable incidents. Safety, 1, 4458.Google Scholar
Nelson, T., Kagan, N., Critchlow, C., Hillard, A., & Hsu, A. (2020). The danger of misinformation in the COVID-19 crisis. Missouri Medicine, 117(6), 510512.Google Scholar
Novella, S. (2018). Teleology and conspiracy thinking. Neurologica. https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/teleology-and-conspiracy-thinking/Google Scholar
Nyhan, B. (2010). Why the “death panel” myth wouldn’t die: Misinformation in the health care Reform Debate. The Forum 8. https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Why-Death-Panel-Myth-Wont-Die.pdfGoogle Scholar
Oliver, J. E., & Wood, T. J. (2014). Conspiracy theories and the paranoid style(s) of mass opinion. American Journal of Political Science, 58(4), 952966.Google Scholar
Papasavva, A., Blackburn, J., Stringhini, G., Zannettou, S., & De Cristofaro, E. (2020). “Is it a Qoincidence?”: A first step towards understanding and characterizing the QAnon movement on Voat.co. Computers and Society. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2009.04885CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasek, J., Stark, T. H., Krosnick, J. A., & Tompson, T. (2015). What motivates a conspiracy theory? Birther beliefs, partisanship, liberal–conservative ideology, and anti-Black attitudes. Electoral Studies, 40, 482489.Google Scholar
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2020). Who falls for fake news? The roles of bullshit receptivity, overclaiming, familiarity, and analytic thinking. Journal of Personality, 88(2), 185200.Google Scholar
Pierre, J. (2020). Mistrust and misinformation: A two-component, socio-epistemic model of belief in conspiracy theories. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 8(2), 617641.Google Scholar
Pytlik, N., Soll, D., & Mehl, S. (2020). Thinking preferences and conspiracy belief: Intuitive thinking and the jumping to conclusions-bias as a basis for the belief in conspiracy theories. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 568942.Google Scholar
Reimann, N. (2021, August 13). QAnon marked Friday as Trump “reinstatement” day – here are other flop predictions of Trump’s return. Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/08/13/qanon-marked-friday-as-trump-reinstatement-day-here-are-other-flop-predictions-of-trumps-return/?sh=7e0e14982a77Google Scholar
Richey, S. (2017). A birther and a truther: The influence of the authoritarian personality on conspiracy beliefs. Politics & Policy, 45, 465485.Google Scholar
Romer, D., & Jamieson, K. H. (2020). Conspiracy theories as a barrier to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. Social Science & Medicine, 263, 113356.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. (2003, August 30). Creationism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/Google Scholar
Schor, E. (2021, January 13). Anti-Semitism seen in Capitol insurrection raises alarms. Associated Press: US News. www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-13/anti-semitism-seen-in-capitol-insurrection-raises-alarmsGoogle Scholar
Sen, A., & Zadrozny, B. (2020, August 10). QAnon groups have millions of members on Facebook, documents show. NBC News. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/qanon-groups-have-millions-members-facebook-documents-show-n1236317Google Scholar
Sommer, W. (2020, August 15). QAnon promotes pedo-ring conspiracy theories. Now they’re stealing kids. The Daily Beast. www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-promotes-pedo-ring-conspiracy-theories-now-theyre-stealing-kidsGoogle Scholar
Stanton, Z. (2020). You’re living in the golden age of conspiracy theories. Politico. www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/17/conspiracy-theories-pandemic-trump-2020-election-coronavirus-326530Google Scholar
Sternisko, A., Cichocka, A., Cislak, A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2023). National narcissism and the belief and dissemination of conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from 56 countries. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(1), 4865.Google Scholar
Tolan, C., Kuznia, R., & Ortega, B. (2021, January 7). Insurrection fueled by conspiracy groups, extremists, and fringe movements. CNN. www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/insurrection-capitol-extremist-groups-invs/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Uscinski, J. E., & Parent, J. M. (2014). The ages of conspiracies. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van der Linden, S., Panagopoulos, C., Azevedo, F., & Jost, J. (2020). The paranoid style in American politics revisited: An ideological asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking. Political Psychology, 42(1), 2351.Google Scholar
van Prooijen, J. W., & Douglas, K. M. (2017). Conspiracy theories as a part of history: The role of societal crisis situations. Memory Studies, 10(3), 323333.Google Scholar
van Prooijen, J. W., Krouwel, A. P. M., & Pollet, T. (2015). Political extremism predicts belief in conspiracy theories. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(5), 570578.Google Scholar
Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359, 11461151.Google Scholar
Wade, P. (2023, January 8). MTG, a Member of Congress, blames “the Internet” for her past QAnon beliefs. Rolling Stone. www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/marjorie-taylor-greene-blames-internet-qanon-beliefs-1234657579/Google Scholar
Wagner-Egger, P., Delouvée, S., Gauvrit, N., & Dieguez, S. (2018). Creationism and conspiracism share a common teleological basis. Current Biology, 28, R847R870.Google Scholar
Walker, L. E. A. (2002). Politics, psychology, and the Battered Women’s Movement. Journal of Trauma Practice, 1(1), 81102.Google Scholar
West, D. M. (2021, January 11). The role of misinformation in Trump’s insurrection. Brookings. www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2021/01/11/the-role-of-misinformation-in-trumps-insurrection/Google Scholar
Willingham, A. J. (2020, October 3). How the pandemic and politics gave us a golden age of conspiracy theories. CNN. www.cnn.com/2020/10/03/us/conspiracy-theories-why-origins-pandemic-politics-trnd/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Winter, J. (2019, August 1). Exclusive: FBI document warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat. Yahoo News. www.yahoo.com/now/fbi-documents-conspiracy-theories-terrorism-160000507.htmlGoogle Scholar
Wood, M. J., & Douglas, K. M. (2015). Online communication as a window to conspiracist worldviews. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 836.Google Scholar
Yakeley, J. (2018). Current understanding of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. BJPsych Advances, 24(5), 305315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zitser, J., & Ankle, S. (2021, June 27). A Trump loving insurrectionist and a convicted stalker are among 36 QAnon supporters running for Congress in 2022. Insider. www.businessinsider.com/the-36-qanon-supporters-running-congress-in-the-2022-midterms-2021-6Google Scholar
Zuckerman, E., & McQuade, M. (2019). QAnon and the emergence of the unreal. Journal of Design and Science. https://doi.org/10.21428/7808da6b.6b8a82b9Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×