A new longitudinal study published in Psychedelic Medicine suggests that the timing of a person’s most intense psychedelic experience may shape their willingness to endorse partisan violence, with distinct patterns around the Fourth of July, the 2024 party conventions and Election Day. The research was led by Otto Simonsson, an assistant professor at the Centre for Social Sustainability within Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, and involved colleagues Peter S. Hendricks, Walter Osika and Simon B. Goldberg.
Psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD are substances that alter perception, mood and cognitive processes by interacting with serotonin receptors in the brain. The study sits within a broader debate about how context—the environment and the mood of the moment—can shape psychedelic outcomes. As the authors note, psychedelics do not automatically make people more peaceful or politically liberal, but may magnify a user’s wider cultural and social surroundings.
Researchers emphasise that outcomes after a psychedelic experience are strongly influenced by “set and setting,” terms used to describe a person’s mindset and the physical and social environment. Building on that idea, some scholars have suggested that the broader sociocultural context might matter as well, but that idea is difficult to test empirically, Simonsson explained.
With that in mind, the team investigated whether taking psychedelics during nationally meaningful moments could be linked to changes in attitudes toward partisan violence. They reasoned that the Fourth of July, a date widely associated with unity, might provide a backdrop that shapes subsequent responses differently from ordinary dates, Simonsson noted.
The study used a longitudinal observational design, recruiting a large sample of U.S. adults aged 18 to 50 via Prolific. Data came from two waves collected in the summers of 2023 and 2024, with participants unaware that psychedelics were the specific focus when they signed up.
In the initial survey, 21,990 participants answered questions about demographics and baseline support for partisan violence, and about two months later, 12,345 returned for a follow‑up survey. In the second survey, participants reported whether they had used classic psychedelics in the interim, the exact date and the estimated dose of the most intense experience, and then answered the same questions on partisan violence again.
The researchers accounted for a range of factors, including age, gender identity, political affiliation, prior psychedelic use, survey year and the use of alcohol, cannabis and stimulants, as well as educational attainment and religious beliefs. Among thousands, 505 participants reported psychedelic use in the two‑month window, and of these, 19 noted their most intense experience occurred on the Fourth of July. The remaining 486 reported an intense experience on other dates.
The results showed that those whose most intense psychedelic experience fell on the Fourth of July exhibited a larger decrease in support for partisan violence over the study period than those whose experiences occurred on other dates, a difference of about 0.7 standard deviations, although this conclusion rests on a small subset of participants. Participants who did not use psychedelics also showed a greater decrease than the other‑date users.
The researchers also conducted exploratory analyses of other politically charged dates. Taking psychedelics on the date of the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump was linked to a decrease in support for partisan violence, a finding reported almost exclusively by Republican respondents in the sample, though the authors caution that only a small number of Republicans were included overall.
In contrast, the context of an upcoming election appeared to correlate with the opposite pattern. Using psychedelics during the Democratic or Republican National Conventions was associated with an increase in support for partisan violence, an effect stronger for individuals exposed to their own party leaders describing the other side as a threat. Similarly, having a most intense psychedelic experience on a date closer to Election Day was linked to higher endorsement of political violence.
The authors interpret these patterns as consistent with the view that psychedelics may amplify the prevailing mood of the moment. A unifying holiday might soften partisan hostility, while a divisive political moment could heighten it. An earlier analysis from the same team, cited in the study, found that illegal settings were linked to increased psychotic and manic symptoms, whereas legal or decriminalised settings were not, further underscoring context‑dependence.
“There’s reasonably good evidence that psychedelic outcomes depend on context – what researchers call set and setting,” lead study author Otto Simonsson told PsyPost. “Building on this idea, some scholars have suggested that the broader sociocultural context might matter as well, but that idea is difficult to test empirically,” he explained.
Simonsson added: “One possible approach is to use dates that carry a shared cultural meaning, and the Fourth of July is a reasonable candidate, since it’s broadly associated with unity and collective celebration. If the wider cultural context does shape what follows from a psychedelic experience, then using on that date, with that as the backdrop, might be associated with different changes than using on an ordinary date. That was the basic logic.”
He also emphasised the main takeaway: “possibly that psychedelics might not push people in any single direction.” “In our data, participants whose most intense psychedelic experience fell on the Fourth of July showed a decrease in support for partisan violence over the study period, while those whose experience fell during the party conventions or closer to Election Day showed an increase,” he added.
Nevertheless, the researchers urge caution. “That said, this is one study with a small number of relevant participants, so I’d hold the takeaway loosely,” Simonsson cautioned.
As with all research, there are several caveats. The study observed people in real life rather than assigning them to take psychedelics, so causality cannot be established. Only the Fourth of July test was preregistered; the analyses concerning the assassination attempt, political conventions and Election Day were exploratory and not corrected for multiple testing. The sample sizes for the date-specific groups were small, and there was a high dropout rate between the first and second surveys. Exposure to the events was not measured directly; participants were asked whether they celebrated the Fourth of July, but not whether they closely followed the conventions, the assassination attempt or the election.
The researchers recruited online and targeted an age group likely to include psychedelic users, so the findings may not reflect the broader public. Self‑reported substance use and political views can also be subject to bias in survey responses.
The study, “Politically Salient Events May Modulate Effects of Naturalistic Psychedelic Use on Support for Partisan Violence,” was authored by Otto Simonsson, Peter S. Hendricks, Walter Osika and Simon B. Goldberg.
