A social sharedness interpretation of the January 6th US Capitol insurrection

Objective: Using the three dynamics of the social psychology of tyranny as our organizing framework, we examine various types of social sharedness as important determinants of the events leading up to and including the January 6th Capitol insurrection. Method: Using an interactionist lens, we review and summarize the relevant theoretical and empirical work regarding important individual characteristics shared by those who were drawn to the capitol along with key features of the social context that facilitated the development of a shared reality that ultimately led to the violence at the Capitol. We also highlight the transformative role that group interaction (both in person and virtually) played in strengthening newly emergent social identities and shared beliefs (e.g., accelerationism). Results and Conclusions: We conclude that the events of January 6th can be understood as the interactive effects of both dispositional characteristics including authoritarianism and uncertainty and situation-specific features including leader created uncertainty and an “us versus them” context. We also demonstrate the explanatory power of the concept “social sharedness” throughout and discuss the implications of these beliefs for the future political landscape in the United States. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)