Recent research published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology suggests that the use of psychedelic substances does not reliably alter authoritarian political attitudes. These findings contrast with prior reports indicating that psychedelics might make individuals less authoritarian, providing evidence that any such psychological shifts are likely inconsistent and dependent on other unknown factors.
Psychedelics are a class of psychoactive substances that can induce profound changes in perception, mood, and cognitive processes. Common examples include psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, and lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD. These drugs interact with the brain’s serotonin system, which helps regulate mood and human perception.
By stimulating specific serotonin receptors, these substances are thought to increase neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize itself, adapt, and form new neural connections. Because of this heightened state of plasticity, the human mind tends to become more open to change and highly sensitive to environmental influences during a psychedelic experience.
Researchers have noted that the psychological outcomes of a psychedelic experience often depend heavily on the context in which the drug is taken. This concept is often referred to as setting. The setting includes the physical space, the social environment, and the presence of guides or therapists who facilitate the experience.
Authoritarian attitudes represent a psychological construct that generally captures a person’s preference for strict obedience to authority, social conformity, and traditional values. Previous small-scale research suggested a potential link between psychedelic use and a decrease in these authoritarian views. For instance, a past pilot study involving patients with treatment-resistant depression found that authoritarianism scores dropped after psilocybin therapy.
But that earlier research relied on small sample sizes and lacked randomized control groups, which limited the strength of the conclusions. To better understand this relationship, scientists aimed to re-evaluate the effects of psychedelics on political views using larger participant pools and more robust experimental designs.
Lead study author Otto Simonsson explained the inspiration behind revisiting this topic. “This project actually has a fairly long history,” he said. “We started in 2019 and it evolved considerably over time. One of our main motivations was to revisit and build on earlier work suggesting that psychedelic use might reduce authoritarian attitudes. Rather than relying on a single study, we wanted to see whether that relationship would hold up across multiple datasets.”
To achieve this, the researchers analyzed data from three separate studies. The first study was a naturalistic observational project involving adults who planned to take psychedelics on their own initiative. Recruitment took place through online advertisements on social media and internet drug forums.
The sample included 629 participants at the beginning, with an average age of 32 years. Most participants planned to use LSD, psilocybin, or ayahuasca. Researchers followed up with the group over time, with 269 people completing a two-week follow-up survey and 180 people completing a four-week follow-up survey.
The authors measured authoritarianism across all studies using a five-item questionnaire. Participants rated their agreement with statements on a scale from one, meaning strongly disagree, to five, meaning strongly agree. The statements included concepts such as whether young people lack respect for traditional values, whether lawbreakers need stiffer sentences, and whether protests against the government should be banned.
In this first study, the statistical analysis showed no significant changes in authoritarian attitudes at either the two-week or four-week mark compared to the participants’ baseline scores. The initial attitudes recorded before the psychedelic experience remained mostly unchanged afterward.
The second study involved a controlled, single-blind design with 28 healthy adult volunteers. These participants had an average age of 41 years and had no prior experience with psychedelics. The term single-blind means the participants did not know the exact dosage they were receiving during each session, which helps control for their personal expectations.
These participants received two oral doses of psilocybin spaced four weeks apart, paired with psychological support. The first dose was a very low amount of 1 milligram. This is considered a subthreshold dose, acting essentially as a placebo because it does not produce noticeable psychedelic effects. The second dose, given four weeks later, was a fully active amount of 25 milligrams.
The researchers measured the participants’ authoritarian attitudes two and four weeks after the placebo dose, as well as two and four weeks after the active high dose. Similar to the first study, the data showed no significant shifts in authoritarian views following either the low dose or the high dose. The participants’ political perspectives remained generally stable throughout the entire testing period.
The third study was a double-blind, randomized controlled trial involving 59 adults diagnosed with moderate to severe major depressive disorder. In a double-blind study, neither the participants nor the researchers know who is receiving which specific treatment until the study concludes. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two different treatment conditions.
One group of 29 individuals, with an average age of 39 years, received a standard treatment approach. They took daily escitalopram capsules for six weeks, starting at 10 milligrams and increasing to 20 milligrams for the final three weeks. Escitalopram is a common conventional antidepressant medication. To maintain the study’s blind design, they also received two tiny 1-milligram doses of psilocybin during supervised sessions.
The other group of 30 individuals, with an average age of 43 years, received an experimental treatment approach. They took an inactive daily placebo pill for six weeks. During their supervised sessions, they received two large 25-milligram doses of psilocybin. Both groups received psychological support alongside their assigned medical treatments.
The scientists measured authoritarian attitudes at the beginning of the study and again six weeks later. Once again, there were no significant changes in authoritarian attitudes within either the standard antidepressant group or the high-dose psilocybin group. Additionally, no significant differences emerged when comparing the two groups against each other.
Across all three varied studies, incorporating naturalistic use, healthy volunteers, and depressed patients, the findings consistently failed to show any reliable shift in authoritarian attitudes following psychedelic use. This wide-ranging approach provides evidence that the pharmacological action of psychedelics alone does not naturally push individuals away from authoritarian political views.
“The studies weren’t originally designed primarily to test this question, but the honest takeaway is that the current evidence is not compelling that psychedelics shift authoritarian attitudes in any consistent direction,” Simonsson said.
Despite these consistent findings, the researchers noted some limitations and potential misinterpretations of the data. One major factor to consider is that the baseline authoritarianism scores across all three studies were already quite low from the very beginning.
This creates what scientists call a floor effect. A floor effect occurs when a test or measure is so difficult, or a starting score is so low, that it is nearly impossible for the numbers to drop any further. Because the participants were already very low in authoritarianism, the researchers had limited potential to observe any further decreases.
Another limitation is the lack of specific data regarding the broader social and political environment of the participants. The authors note that psychedelics might act as non-specific amplifiers of an individual’s surroundings. This means the drug might simply turn up the volume on whatever social or political context the person is already experiencing before, during, and after the drug session.
If a person is exposed to specific political content or influenced by the political beliefs of the therapists providing psychological support, those factors could theoretically guide a change in attitudes. Because the researchers did not collect data on media consumption or the political environment, this possibility remains an open question for future analysis.
The authors suggest that psychedelics might still impact other facets of political psychology, rather than strict authoritarianism. For instance, these substances could influence environmental attitudes, feelings of connection to nature, or empathy toward political outgroups.
Future research should aim to recruit larger and more politically diverse samples to avoid the statistical floor effect seen in these studies. Scientists also recommend collecting more detailed data about the context of the psychedelic experience and exploring different political outcomes to build a more complete understanding of how these drugs interact with human belief systems.
“If there’s a broader lesson, it’s about the value of replication in science: testing whether earlier findings hold up across larger samples and different designs is exactly how the field moves forward,” Simonsson said.
The study, “Effects of psychedelic use on authoritarian attitudes revisited,” was authored by Otto Simonsson, Taylor Lyons, Joseph Marks, Hannes Kettner, Leor Roseman, Eline Haijen, Mendel Kaelen, and Robin Carhart-Harris.
