Since President Donald Trump took office a few weeks ago, the administration’s frenetic activity, which has included withdrawing from global agreements and slashing federal jobs and funding, has left many people reeling. Others, though, seem to be reveling in the chaos. According to political scientists, at least some of this chaos-seeking behavior may be intricately tied to people’s sense of losing their footing in society. And that sense, in turn, has ties to rising inequality and globalization.
“Chaos is a strategy that some people use to account for a perceived loss in status,” says political scientist Kevin Arceneaux of the research university Sciences Po in Paris, France. “Their reaction to that is to then start to create trouble, as a way to turn the cart on its head and try to reclaim their place.”
Most people prefer order, Arceneaux says. But about 15 percent of the U.S. population gravitates toward chaos, or “a desire for a new beginning through the destruction of order and established structures,” Arceneaux and his team reported in 2021 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The team reached that conclusion after developing a scale to measure people’s desire for chaos. Some 5,000 Americans rated their level of agreement with statements such as, “I think society should be burned to the ground,” “I get a kick when natural disasters strike foreign countries” and “Sometimes I just feel like destroying beautiful things.”
Those highest in what Arceneaux calls chaos-seeking behavior — 5 percent of the roughly 5,000 Americans surveyed — seem keen to generate mayhem for mayhem’s sake without worrying about who gets hurt in the process, the team found. Meanwhile, roughly 10 percent of the people surveyed desire chaos but lack any ill intent, Arceneaux says. They just think society is too broken to be fixed. “These folks want society to start over, but they don’t want to hurt people,” Arceneaux says.
Science News spoke to Arceneaux to understand the role individual desires for chaos might be playing at this moment in U.S. and global history. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
SN: What prompted your team to start studying chaos?
Arceneaux: It was probably early 2017. We had decided to start this research project to study misinformation. What was in the news at that time was that social media had been used for circulating a lot of false narratives. That really was the thing that we were interested in studying. And we conceptualized this concept [as] “need for chaos.”
We started to dig into the academic literature on social marginalization and status seeking. The idea here is that there are some individuals who feel like they’re losing status. And this is a perception. These don’t need to be people that are really destitute. They can actually be, in an absolute sense, well off. These individuals’ reaction to that perceived loss is to then try to create trouble.
Then we developed the scale and we did a bunch of pilot studies. And then what we showed through a series of studies is that these individuals, clearly, their motivation for sharing misinformation is to just really stir up trouble, and they don’t care if it’s true or not.
Thankfully, it’s not a big group of people. At the same time, you don’t need a big group of people to create chaos.
SN: You’ve analyzed how the need for chaos correlates with certain personality traits. According to your work, what characterizes chaos seekers?
Arceneaux: There are two types of people that are high in chaos. A small group of people score highest on the scale. They want both society to burn to the ground and to destroy beautiful things. There’s another group that’s a little bit bigger that we called “rebuilders.” They tended to say yes to burning institutions to the ground. But they don’t want the malevolence. They don’t get a kick out of natural disasters striking countries and things like that.
Chaos seekers seem to be driven by ego. They feel like they’re not being respected as much as they feel they should. But need for chaos is not a personality trait, where in every single context people are going to seek chaos. Instead, it’s something that psychologists call a character adaptation. These adaptations help people respond to a particular context. Right now, factors such as rising inequality and globalization are making life feel more precarious. So people high in darker personality traits might be responding by dialing up the chaos.
Neither group [of chaos-seekers] is driven by a political ideology. In 2016 and in 2020, scoring high on the scale did not correlate with voting for Donald Trump. We have preliminary findings showing that people who scored high on the scale in 2024 were more likely to vote for Donald Trump. We don’t know what changed.
SN: Your research also suggests that chaos seekers skew white and male. Why do you think that is?
Arceneaux: If you look at the Black individuals in our sample, they’re much more likely to be concerned about the group versus the individual than white individuals. There’s historically been much more emphasis on this notion of linked fate, that what happens to the group affects the individual.
Among Black men and Black women – and it looks like white women too – if they feel like their group has lost, that’s negatively correlated with need for chaos. And this seems to fit with what we know from the “linked fate” literature … You’re a minority in a country where you feel like you’re losing. Creating chaos isn’t going to help you.
White men as a demographic group have been found to exhibit a strong correlation between feelings of status loss and a need for chaos. This correlation aligns with a theory that suggests personal status loss is a key motivator for individuals. White men, in particular, tend to be more concerned about their individual status and the impact of any perceived loss.
Research conducted by political scientist Roy Truex and myself during the 2024 U.S. election shed light on this theory. We surveyed 500 individuals across the country on a weekly basis leading up to the election, with a focus on measuring feelings of status loss, perception of absolute status, and the need for chaos. The findings revealed that individuals who perceived themselves as having low status were more likely to exhibit a high need for chaos, consistent with the theory.
The concept of relative deprivation in social psychology further supports this idea, highlighting how individuals compare their own status to that of others. People who feel they are low in status may experience a sense of losing out, while those who believe they are high in status may fear losing their advantage. This dynamic is often exacerbated in societies with high levels of inequality, where both the disadvantaged and the privileged may feel threatened by potential changes to the status quo.
In light of these findings, it becomes crucial to address the root causes of status loss and the resulting need for chaos. Simply dismissing the concerns of individuals who feel marginalized or disadvantaged is not a viable solution. It is essential to listen to their grievances and understand why they feel dissatisfied with the current system.
One potential outcome of this discontent is a preference for strong leaders who promise to restore order and address perceived injustices. This trend can be observed across the political spectrum, with examples such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela appealing to those seeking change, regardless of their political ideology.
Ultimately, in order to mitigate the chaos fueled by feelings of status loss, it is imperative to address the underlying issues that contribute to these sentiments. By acknowledging and addressing the concerns of individuals across the social spectrum, we can work towards creating a more inclusive and equitable society that benefits everyone.
