“I one-hundred thousand percent blame it on QAnon”: The impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships

Abstract

Conspiracy beliefs have been found to have negative real-world consequences that can impact interpersonal relationships; however, this remains an under-researched area. With the current popularity of conspiracy movements such as QAnon, more research into these phenomena is necessary. The present research therefore aimed to explore the impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships. Fifteen participants aged 21–54 (M = 41) with a QAnon-affiliated loved one were interviewed about how QAnon has changed their relationship. Using thematic analysis, four main themes were identified: Malignant Q, Distance, Qonflict, and Attempts at Healing. Participants characterized QAnon as a malignant force in their relationships and communicated with their loved ones less as a result. Although QAnon was a source of conflict and tension for all participants, they were motivated to understand their loved ones. Most participants who still had relationships with their loved ones were motivated to heal or maintain their relationships, while those who no longer did had previously tried many different strategies to save their relationships. These findings provide greater insight into how QAnon can impact relationships, offering fruitful directions for future research examining how individuals can heal from QAnon-afflicted relationships.

Keywords

Conspiracy beliefs conspiracy theories political polarization QAnon radicalization relationships relationship maintenance relationship quality

Introduction

QAnon is a big-tent conspiracy theory that has gained unprecedented popularity since its emergence in late 2017 (Garry et al., 2021). It has been likened to a cult (Cohen, 2022) and noted to have addictive qualities (Bloom & Moskalenko, 2021). Core QAnon beliefs include the idea that a government insider called “Q” is leaking government secrets; that Democrats and other liberal elites are part of a global satanic and pedophilic cabal; and that Donald Trump is fighting a secret war against this cabal and other “deep-state” actors (Mousaw, 2022). However, QAnon beliefs are nebulous, with various factions of QAnon followers holding other beliefs in addition to these core convictions. Followers imagine that they are fighting a battle of good versus evil, tending to demonize perceived enemies (Goldenberg et al., 2021; Sommer, 2023). They congregate on various online platforms to analyze cryptic posts (“Q-drops”), read into current events, and make future predictions (Beene & Greer, 2021). There is a consensus-building element to QAnon, where ideas about what each Q-drop could mean are discussed and have the potential to become adopted into the larger narrative (Waltman, 2023). Because of this, QAnon provides a sense of belonging and purpose for many adherents, who often repeat phrases such as “Where we go one, we go all” as a call to unity (Waltman, 2023). Followers also use thought-terminating clichés (Lifton, 1961), urging each other to “trust the plan” when predictions do not come to pass (Sommer, 2023; Waltman, 2023), thereby maintaining their beliefs in the face of counterevidence (Barkun, 2018; Liekefett et al., 2021). QAnon followers are passionate about their beliefs, often proselytizing to friends and family (Goldenberg et al., 2021; Mousaw, 2022). QAnon beliefs are radical, polarizing, and deeply-held, and the fact that many believers feel a compulsion to spread them suggests that QAnon likely strains their relationships.

Some researchers call media narratives around QAnon “alarmist” (Uscinski, 2022) due to the fact that only 6.8% of US survey respondents agreed with the statement “I believe in QAnon” (Uscinski & Enders, 2021). However, this percentage still represents a whopping 22.5 million Americans endorsing an extreme set of beliefs. Furthermore, this figure is misleading, as the core beliefs of QAnon are much more popular. According to survey data, 16% of Americans agree with the core QAnon belief that the government and media are run by a Satanic cabal that also operates a global child sex trafficking ring, and 22% believe that a “storm” will come that will remove corrupt elites from power and restore the country’s rightful leaders (PRRI Staff, 2022). These startling figures indicate that QAnon cannot be brushed off as a fringe group without political influence. As QAnon and its adjacent ideas are so popular, it is important to develop a better understanding of their impact on interpersonal relationships. News articles abound with anecdotal stories of relationships that have been strained or ruined by QAnon (e.g., Lytvynenko, 2020; Melton, 2021; Naik, 2021; Sommer, 2023). Meanwhile, when this project began, a support group on Reddit for people with QAnon-following loved ones (/r/QAnonCasualties) had 260,000 members; a year later, this group has grown to over 275,000 members, evidencing the increasing number of people whose relationships are affected by QAnon belief. On this forum, users commiserate over strained relationships, support each other, and share their attempts to pull loved ones from the QAnon rabbit-hole.

While recent research focuses on the antecedents (e.g., Douglas et al., 2017; Oliver & Wood, 2014) and effects (e.g., Douglas et al., 2019; Liekefett et al., 2021) of conspiracy beliefs, there has been little emphasis on their consequences for interpersonal relationships (Moskalenko et al., 2022), and only three studies to date have researched the impacts of QAnon specifically. Moskalenko et al. (2022) were the first to quantitatively examine the effects of QAnon on relationships with loved ones, observing that respondents reported alienation, emotional distress, and significant deterioration of their relationships due to their loved ones’ QAnon beliefs. Meanwhile, using mixed methods, Mousaw (2022) found a marked decrease in closeness, relationship satisfaction, and contact with QAnon-following loved ones. Participants reported talking to their loved ones less, having more arguments, and fewer pleasant interactions. Lastly, Waltman (2023) conducted a thematic analysis of quotes from journalistic articles about QAnon’s negative effects on relationships, finding that QAnon was a source of significant relationship strain.

The extant literature shows that belief in QAnon can be deeply entrenched, with significant impacts to the believer’s relationships. However, previous investigations have taken quantitative, mixed-methods, or secondary data analysis approaches to their examinations of the impacts of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships. The present research contributes to this scant literature base, building upon previous work and addressing a gap in their approaches by taking a fully qualitative approach to elicit rich data that captures individuals’ lived emotional experiences in their relationships with QAnon-affiliated loved ones, and how they have responded. Specifically, it employs a more extensive set of open-ended questions to generate more comprehensive responses and gain a more holistic qualitative picture of how people characterize QAnon’s impact on their relationships and how they have navigated these relational changes. Developing a better understanding of these individual experiences may provide a springboard for future studies into potential interventions and strategies to heal relationships strained by QAnon. Guided by a social constructionist epistemological approach (see Analytic Strategy), the research questions were as follows:

RQ1: How can a close relationship be impacted by one person’s belief in QAnon?

RQ2: How do loved ones of QAnon-affiliated individuals deal with these changes to their relationships?

Method

Design

A qualitative design was chosen to examine the impact of QAnon belief on relationships. In semi-structured interviews, participants were asked how they felt their loved one’s QAnon affiliation has affected their relationships. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to develop themes from participants’ answers. Throughout this inquiry, the researchers endeavored to meet Tracy’s (2010) criteria for excellent qualitative research, including rigor, sincerity, and credibility. The interview schedule and a comprehensive overview of exemplary quotes, grouped by theme and code, are available as online Supplemental Materials.

Participants

There were 15 participants: 10 female, four male, and one nonbinary. Participants’ ages ranged from 21–54 (M = 41, Mdn = 45, SD = 11.37). Participants and their loved ones came from five different countries: The United States (60%), Australia (20%), Canada (6.67%), The UK (6.67%), and The Netherlands (6.67%). For seven participants (46.67%), their QAnon-involved loved one was a significant other. For five (33.33%), it was a parent. For three (20%), it was extended family, and for one (6.67%), it was a sibling. Some participants discussed multiple loved ones. Five participants maintained a relationship with their loved ones (33.33%); five had relationships that they characterized as extremely strained or close to ending (33.33%); and five no longer had a relationship (33.33%). Participants were not asked about their political ideology or party affiliations. Inclusion criteria required participants to be 18 years or older, fluent in English, and have a loved one who currently espouses or has formerly espoused QAnon beliefs. Participants were recruited through/r/QAnonCasualties on Reddit. Participation was entirely voluntary with no incentives offered.

Materials

Demographic information (age and gender) was collected using Qualtrics. The interview schedule was devised by the researcher based on commonly shared experiences in/r/QAnonCasualties. Interviews were conducted and recorded using MS Teams. Rough transcripts were auto-generated using MS Teams and manually corrected by the researchers. Transcripts were imported into NVivo for analysis. OneDrive was used to store participant data.

Procedure

After ethical approval was obtained from the researchers’ institution, participants were recruited via the/r/QAnonCasualties forum. The invitation contained a Qualtrics link, where prospective participants could view an information sheet. After providing informed consent, participants completed a short questionnaire asking for their age, gender, and email address. The first author then emailed each participant to schedule a one-to-one MS Teams interview.

Before the interviews, participants were verbally asked for recording permission and reminded that they could refuse to answer any question they were uncomfortable with. At the end of the interviews, participants were given an opportunity to indicate any answers or quotes that they did not wish to be used. They were then verbally thanked and sent a debrief form containing further information about the study and how to request withdrawal of their data should they change their mind about participating. Interview length ranged from 13-71 minutes (M = 26.07, Mdn = 22, SD = 13.87).

Analytic strategy

Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019) was used to develop themes in participants’ interview answers. An inductive approach was chosen to allow the data to determine the themes without imposing unintended meaning onto participants’ words. A social constructionist epistemology was adopted. Social constructionism emphasizes the importance of understanding how interpersonal interactions construct individual perceptions of reality (Gergen, 1985). As conspiracy believers can develop a skewed view of reality (Franks et al., 2017), the root of the relationship strain that arises between QAnon followers and their loved ones can be viewed as a clash of vastly different views of reality, making the social constructionist approach ideal.

The first author conducted all stages of the coding and analysis. The data were analyzed at both semantic and latent tiers of meaning to ensure a comprehensive analysis. The transcripts were read several times to ensure familiarity with the data. Next, the data were coded and recoded to identify initial patterns. Throughout the coding process, the researcher continually referred to the RQs, to ensure the data were being viewed through the lens of QAnon’s impact on relationships. When coding accounts of conflicts between participants and their loved ones, extra care was taken to analyze how participants’ characterizations of these interactions speak to larger changes in the relationship dynamics. Guided by the RQs, the codes were grouped into initial themes (i.e., data domains; Braun & Clarke, 2019) and subthemes. These were then reflexively reviewed and refined, considering the RQs and applying Braun and Clarke’s (2019) conceptualization of themes as “patterns of shared meaning” (p. 593). Throughout this process and in line with one of Lincoln and Guba’s (1986) criteria for credibility, the first author consulted with the second for an outside perspective on the clarity of the themes and how they relate to one another. Figure 1 shows the final themes and subthemes and the relationships between them.

Figure 1.

Thematic map.

Findings

Four themes were generated from the dataset: Malignant Q, Distance, Qonflict, and Attempts at Healing. Each theme contains 2-3 subthemes, which are discussed below using thick description (Tracy, 2010).

Theme 1: Malignant Q

All participants characterized QAnon as a malignant force in their relationships. Two distinct subthemes were identified: Shocked by Loved One’s Radicalization, and Ideology Becomes Personal.

Shocked by loved one’s radicalization

Participants often lamented how radicalized their loved ones had become. While pre-QAnon beliefs varied, participants described their loved ones’ beliefs as increasingly radical, intolerant, paranoid, angry, and outwardly hateful. One participant’s partner “went from being a really sort of happy, gentle, kind, lovely, funny person to being absolutely hate-filled” (P12). Another said their ex-partner “has become much more irrational, illogical…just an angry, miserable person,” adding later, “I one-hundred thousand percent blame it on QAnon” (P9). Others witnessed their loved ones becoming increasingly xenophobic or homophobic, expressing “anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-Semitic” (P11) opinions with statements like “we need to encourage our children to have children because we’re running out of white babies” (P1). This sometimes extended to demonizing outgroups. For one participant, QAnon led to “us and them” thinking whereby “they see Democrats as literal satanic people” (P11). Hearing loved ones’ hateful rhetoric was disturbing for participants and affected their relationships negatively.

Many described being continually shocked by their loved ones’ beliefs. “It’s mind-blowing to hear what she says and really believes,” (P2) said one participant. Another was “still in disbelief that it could happen” (P6). Participants universally found QAnon abhorrent, describing it as “poisonous, horrible, destructive, evil, insidious,” (P15) and an “evil, absolutely evil, horrific, brainwashing, corrupting cult,” (P12). Another described their difficulty reconciling that “the person who raised me…is convinced that everyone else in my life is a pedophile and a threat” (P10). Participants often found it difficult to accept that their loved ones had adopted an extreme ideology.

Also prominent within this subtheme was the idea of benign (or less harmful) beliefs turning malignant. This often took the form of noting things that were probably warning signs in hindsight, which were downplayed or ignored at the time. One participant described how their ex-partner “always had had kind of some interest in conspiracy theories…I think I had always kind of dismissed that,” adding that after QAnon they “started to sort of put it together. I’m like, this is much bigger than him just having a few goofy ideas” (P11). Another described similar patterns:

Before the whole QAnon thing, I remember…he mentioned something about how Obama wasn’t a real American…The conspiracies, I think, were a part of his life for quite a long time, but…back in 2008, it was fairly benign. It was stuff that you would hear like once and then people just forget about it and it doesn't matter. But now…it's become more of a militant thing (P8).

This quote exemplifies the commonly-expressed sentiment that participants’ loved ones were less radical before QAnon. While arguably not benign on a macro-level, beliefs such as Obama secretly being Kenyan can be dismissed as inconsequential on a personal level. This kind of conspiracy belief did not get mentioned often and therefore had little impact on the relationship. The difference between beliefs that can be dismissed and beliefs that affect relationships seems to be the degree to which the beliefs are being acted upon on a personal level, either by proselytizing or making personal decisions based on them. The former links to the Qonflict theme and will be discussed below. The latter is where this subtheme relates to the following subtheme, Ideology Becomes Personal.

Ideology becomes personal

Ideology becomes personal when beliefs become less abstract and start to affect relationships on a personal level. Many participants cited the COVID-19 pandemic as something that amplfied their relationship issues:

The COVID part really highlighted it…it's easy to say ‘whatever’ if there's some belief that, you know, there's a secret group of lizard people running in the world or something that he's not acting on…but when it came to COVID and public health and his health…that’s what was harder (P7).

Another prominent aspect of this subtheme, which is closely linked with the previous subtheme, is that some participants described fearing their loved one due to their increasingly radical beliefs:

He felt I was taken up with the devil. And so, what compunction do people have about doing violence to something that they think is actually a demon?…He made me fear him. I can't forgive that (P11).

Others described how their loved ones became outwardly callous or suspicious:

His daughter was in the same area as a mass shooting and instead of expressing concern for her safety…he's like ‘which Democrat paid you to do this?’ She was looking to her father for comfort…and instead all she got was this insane rambling (P8).

Another participant’s ex called them a “fucking Joe Biden lover” and “would say that I think that it's funny that children get raped” (P9). For these participants, their loved ones’ QAnon-inspired ire toward outgroups stopped being merely abstract and started becoming directed at people in their lives. These findings indicate that the tendency towards villainizing outgroups (Sullivan et al., 2010) and “us versus them” thinking characteristic of conspiracy beliefs (Douglas et al., 2019) can negatively impact personal relationships.

Theme 2: Distance

This theme describes the physical and emotional distance felt by participants as a result of their loved ones’ QAnon belief. Two subthemes were identified: Decreased Communication and Search for Connection.

Decreased communication

Decreased communication with loved ones was frequently discussed. Some participants characterized their pre-QAnon relationship as close or positive, with QAnon being the start of the relationship strain. “I will go out of my way to not talk to her, and…I used to call at least once a day,” (P5) said one participant. Others described having an already-complicated or distant relationship that became more strained by QAnon. One participant said of their uncle, “Before, I just thought of him as I would any other family member. Now…I’m terrified of being trapped in a conversation with him” (P8). Regardless of the closeness of the pre-QAnon relationship, participants universally found that QAnon had strained their relationships. Because they were recruited from a QAnon casualties support group, this finding was not unexpected.

Another major component of this subtheme is decreased communication due to limits on conversation topics. “It affects what we can talk about, so most of our conversations now have to stay pretty surface-level. You really can’t go too deep into things,” (P1) explained one participant. Others described similar patterns:

We talk about so many surface and superficial things, and I love deep conversations. I love politics and there's so much that's, like…topics that just create conflicts, so we avoid so many topics. It sucks (P15).

Thus, participants communicated less often and less meaningfully with their loved ones as a result of QAnon, leading to more distant and strained relationships.

Search for connection

Participants often discussed their loved ones’ search for connection. One described their father as a lifelong seeker, saying, “he has tried several religions, including Jehovah’s Witness, black magic, white magic, and now he’s into QAnon” (P3). Others talked about their loved ones having long-term issues connecting with people. “Part of her connection to QAnon was not having connection with outside community,” (P10) said one participant. Many discussed their loved ones’ social circles changing. One said their uncle’s “only real relationships now are with the people online who are encouraging his behavior” (P8). Another talked about shifting family connections:

The problem here is that we have this circle of people within the family who believe what she believes…they're all reinforcing each other’s views and bolstering each other and providing moral support, complaining about their normie sheep relatives (P5).

These quotes highlight the insularity of the QAnon community. Loved ones were sometimes described as believing themselves to be fighting against evil, which is common among QAnon followers (Goldenberg et al., 2021). “They’re saving the world and you don’t know what you’re talking about,” (P6) said one participant. This Manichean thinking characteristic of many conspiracy beliefs (Oliver & Wood, 2014) likely creates a strong sense of community and purpose but also a sense that non-believers are on the wrong path at best, or on the side of evil at worst. Thus, while participants’ loved ones have found belonging through QAnon, their new community poisons their other relationships.

Theme 3: Qonflict

This theme includes interactions and changing dynamics which have damaged participants’ relationships with their loved ones. Two subthemes were identified: Extreme Defensiveness and Disrespect.

Extreme defensiveness

Defensiveness was often a component of interactions recounted by participants:

One time after I had once again debunked some ridiculous…he said, direct quote: ‘Well, you can find anything to disprove anything on the internet.’ So…even respected fact checking sites like Snopes or Factcheck.org or PolitiFact, he would say those were all part of the deep state and they were all paid off (P2).

This outward defensiveness betrays an inability of this participant’s loved one to question his own beliefs. Loved ones were often described as being unwilling to entertain opposing viewpoints:

I said, ‘Say one bad thing about Trump,’ and she couldn't. I mean, literally, it took her fifteen minutes to waffle about the idea of the locker room talk thing, and it was not a firm denunciation, and it was very much this like, play devil's advocate with yourself for one moment…Say one thing criticizing your worldview, and she could not, and that was scary (P10).

Participants’ loved ones seemed to experience discomfort at the idea of looking critically at their beliefs. Some doubled down on QAnon beliefs even when faced with losing important relationships:

I said OK, let's go to a counselor. Let's try to save this marriage. He said he would consider it in three months. And it took me a little while to figure out what he meant was, three months would have been the inauguration, and he thought by then The Storm was gonna happen and all would be revealed (P2).

This speaks to how entrenched QAnon beliefs often are, and how painful it must be for participants’ loved ones to entertain the idea that their beliefs may be untrue. Some offered insight into their loved ones’ defensiveness. “If reality started to set in for her, she would have a psychotic break…she would be that horrified that she would be this gullible and this self-destructive,” (P5) explained one participant. Another thought “it would hurt too much to accept everything that you’ve lost because of this one thing and it’s not real” (P9).

Disrespect

Disrespect was a common element in participants’ interactions with loved ones. Most expressed that their loved ones felt compelled to proselytize about QAnon, often causing participants to feel disrespected:

I said, ‘Mum, I do not want to hear it. This is my line in the sand. Do not,’ and she doesn't care. She just…stomps all over that, kicks the sand in your face…when I did go and see her…I hadn't even sat down at the kitchen table and she said to me, ‘Now I know you don't wanna talk about this, but I want to send you a link to a 10-part video series about what's really going on in the world’ (P5).

Many described loved ones becoming angry when their proselytizing was not welcomed. “His response to me in those conversations is just anger…I could tell him now that the sky is blue, and he would give me 15 reasons why it’s not and scream them all” (P9), explained one participant. Conspiracy beliefs can lead people to adopt alternate views of reality (Franks et al., 2017), and this quote exemplifies the conflict that can result from this, highlighting participants’ frustration that even seemingly non-political topics could trigger QAnon-related tangents. For most participants, this behavior caused rifts in their relationships.

In some cases, participants described their loved ones exhibiting contempt or callousness towards them. One explained that in a visit with their mother, “I was in tears on multiple occasions, and she was sitting within arm’s reach of me, and she just completely ignored my emotions, completely belittled me, and it was just surreal” (P5). Another suspected their partner “liked the fact that I was crying, because it meant he was right and I was wrong in some weird way” (P12). This outward callousness further damaged participants’ relationships.

Theme 4: Attempts at healing

This theme captures participants’ attempts to maintain or repair relationships; heal from broken relationships; or convince loved ones to abandon their QAnon beliefs. Three distinct subthemes were identified: Trying to Understand, Active Approaches, and Giving Up.

Trying to understand

Participants were highly motivated to understand their loved ones. One described learning about “what QAnon is and what differentiates it from a lot of movements in the past” (P10). Some made comparisons to other things as a heuristic for understanding their loved ones. Several participants understood the change in their loved one’s personality and social circles to be cult-like. “I think it has truly become a cult…the way it makes you cut yourself off from your saner relatives…It’s definitely got those cult characteristics,” (P11) explained one participant.

A far more frequent comparison, however, was to addiction:

QAnon is like drug addiction, and, you know the whole cliché, the first step is them admitting they have a problem and then you can do the deprogramming and all that. But until they recognize they need help you can't do a damn thing (P2).

Learning about QAnon or comparing it to cults or addictions may provide participants with a sense of closure and a better understanding of what has happened to their loved ones, all of which can contribute to repairing the relationship or healing from its termination.

Active approaches

This subtheme highlights ways participants have tried to maintain or repair their relationships, or pull their loved ones away from QAnon. Some participants described the moderately successful conversational approaches they have taken:

I suppose at the beginning I just used to say it's just rubbish…Now, I'm kind of like, who does that benefit? How does that benefit them? Why would they do that? What do they stand to gain from doing that? And I just bombard him now with questions…and so we talk it down (P12).

This quote exemplifies how this type of approach can deescalate fraught conversations; however, talking through beliefs like this requires maintaining a high level of patience and low reactivity. For some people it might be too difficult to stay calm upon hearing a loved one express extreme beliefs. It can also be difficult to maintain an open dialogue when loved ones are unable to calmly discuss their beliefs without becoming defensive. Other participants described taking similar approaches that were unsuccessful:

She started talking about reptilians, and the Queen being a reptilian¹…I would say, ‘well, Mum, do you think it's possible that the Queen has access to the best healthcare…Do you think that possibly could have something to do with it?’ and her favorite answer to anything that she can't immediately refute is maybe…she won't concede any ground (P5).

There is little discernible difference between this approach and the previous one. Both participants were trying to maintain an open dialogue; however, the latter elicited a more defensive reaction. Although it is impossible to discern from one person’s retelling, it is possible that the latter interaction was more heated, or that some participants’ loved ones were less simply receptive to any probing of their beliefs. One reflected on the difficulty of taking a conversational approach:

Of all the research I've read, it's important to just keep having the conversation with these the people that believe these things and keep them talking, but I find that it's exhausting…but I'm also scared…to go deeply and find out how much he's in the rabbit hole (P15).

This quote encapsulates the fear and exhaustion that many participants expressed about taking active approaches to healing their relationships. It is difficult to not react when a loved one is spouting increasingly radical rhetoric, and the prospect of asking questions may be frightening, as their beliefs could be even more extreme than previously thought. Staying calm and attempting to maintain an open dialogue can be draining, causing further strain on the relationship.

Some participants took a different approach of setting boundaries around conversation topics or trying to re-ground their loved ones by talking about other subjects. One participant explained, “we are getting back to the way it was…we’ve just gone on long car rides and gone to the beautiful places in the country as soon as lockdown ended and just spent time together, and it’s helped” (P12). “You make a choice. Do you want to sacrifice the relationship you have, or do you just not talk about certain things? So, we don’t talk about certain things” (P1), said another. While these strategies may not always succeed in pulling the loved one away from QAnon, some participants thought they helped preserve the relationship.

Some reflected on the difficulty both people felt about maintaining conversational boundaries around QAnon:

They know where I stand…they will kind of tiptoe when we come and visit. Yeah, I definitely think they will not feel completely free to express their opinions, because I've made mine very clear (P3).

I think it is hard to set beliefs aside…It just seems like some of the things are just so far from reality that it's difficult to put aside. It feels like I'm just putting aside reality for her instead of putting aside my beliefs (P13).

When trying to avoid the topic altogether, QAnon remains an elephant in the room. P3 empathizes with their loved ones feeling less free to share their beliefs even though they have agreed not to discuss them, while P13 feels a sense of injustice at having to tread carefully around their mother’s alternative view of reality. Avoiding QAnon talk does seem to help keep the peace for these participants; however, one or both individuals may feel unseen or unheard. This approach may also contribute to distance in the relationship by limiting what can be talked about. While no approach was described as completely successful, many participants were still motivated to find a solution.

Giving up

The idea of giving up was prominent in participants’ descriptions of their relationships. For some, this meant giving up on pulling their loved ones away from QAnon and focusing on maintaining the relationship in other ways:

There’s just no way to communicate with them about it and make them at least doubt what they believe. And so I just gave up and I just said…I can't keep investing in this. We just have to stop talking about these things (P3).

While QAnon remains a source of tension, not talking about it helps some avoid conflict.

Others gave up on the relationship entirely and decided to focus on personal healing. “If I really challenged him, I don’t think it would end well, because his beliefs are entrenched…I’m at the point where we can go separate ways” (P4), explained one participant. Another tried “many different techniques over the course of the year, and nothing worked, not telling him it was fake, not showing him real information and debunking what he was saying,” adding later:

I started reading about how to get somebody out of a cult, and I tried the deprogramming techniques, that didn't work either, any better than fighting it did and calling it false. It was just hopeless. He was so sucked in by that time (P2).

Another explained that although they felt they learned from interactions with their mother, “it was past the point where I am going to be the person to bring her back,” adding later that “for my own mental health, I had to stop trying” (P10). These participants had decided that their relationships were damaged beyond repair and that they needed to try to move past them.

One participant reflected on the difficulty of healing from a relationship broken by QAnon:

It's hard for your own ego…to realize that you meant nothing in the end, and that there was never hope of you being effective in being the thing that called them back to reason. And we want to believe that love is strong enough to overcome things like this, but I know that it's not, and that is something that I'm gonna have to kind of soberly carry with me (P11).

Some participants went so far as to say they have grieved their loved ones. One, who had tried both setting boundaries and getting their mother psychiatric help, said: “I have mourned my mother, like she’s dead. There’s a stranger walking around in my mum’s body, and it’s really jarring. It’s really distressing” (P5). Another expressed a similar sentiment:

It's really been, in a way, like losing someone. It is different, but it's been a lot like that in a lot of ways. It's kind of a weird thing to feel like you lose a family member but they’re still there. They’re still alive, but you just, they're not part of your life anymore (P7).

For these participants, mourning their loved ones may help them heal, accepting that their relationships will not return to normal.

Discussion

By interviewing individuals whose loved ones subscribed to QAnon beliefs, this qualitative study explored the impact of those beliefs on participants’ interpersonal relationships. Four themes were identified: Malignant Q, Distance, Qonflict, and Attempts at Healing. This section contextualizes the findings within the RQs and synthesizes them with the extant literature.

RQ1: How can a close relationship be impacted by one person’s belief in QAnon?

Participants unanimously believed QAnon to be a malignant presence in their lives and cited their loved ones’ increasingly radical beliefs as a source of relationship strain. This lends support to findings by Moskalenko et al. (2022) that participants with QAnon-believing loved ones perceived them as more radical than themselves. Hearing an increasing amount of hateful rhetoric negatively impacted participants’ relationships, echoing Waltman’s (2023) findings that those with QAnon-following loved ones are often hurt and ashamed by their behavior. The increased anger, paranoia, intolerance, and in some cases violent rhetoric that participants observed in their loved ones also supports prior research linking conspiracy beliefs with prejudice (Jolley et al., 2022), paranoia (Darwin et al., 2011), and political violence (Rottweiler & Gill, 2022).

Participants often cited their loved ones acting on their beliefs in ways that directly affect others, such as an unwillingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or follow pandemic safety protocols, echoing previous findings on this topic (Coehlo et al., 2022; Ripp & Röer, 2022). The clash of realities highlighted by the pandemic became difficult to ignore for many participants, which contributed to relationship strain.

Some participants also began to fear their loved ones. Previous research has found that identifying clear villains is counterintuitively part of the reason believers find conspiracy theories comforting, as the idea that global events are controllable and that there is someone to blame is more psychologically manageable than accepting that the world is chaotic (Sullivan et al., 2010). This may provide comfort for QAnon believers, but it also has the potential to damage their relationships with people who are members of demonized outgroups (Goldenberg et al., 2021), including the participants in this study. The behavioral changes participants observed in their loved ones were also similar to those described by Mousaw (2022), who also discussed fear as an aspect of the emotional toll of QAnon.

While conspiracy theories promise to satisfy the social motive of bolstering self-esteem and group image, they may worsen social isolation (Douglas et al., 2017). The decrease in communication reported by our participants aligns with Mousaw’s (2022) findings that participants avoided communicating with their QAnon-involved loved ones. However, many participants discussed their loved ones finding community through QAnon, which supports Waltman’s (2023) finding that the sense of community is a large part of its appeal. In line with Moskalenko (2022), many participants reported that COVID-19 lockdowns spurred or amplified their loved ones’ QAnon beliefs, which amplified relationship issues and became a further source of isolation. While conspiracy believers may find community through them, this can also isolate them from non-believers (Douglas et al., 2017).

Participants further discussed damaging interactions and changing relationship dynamics. The loved ones’ insistence and evasiveness when pressed betrayed an aversion to questioning beliefs that lends support to the notion that conspiracy believers become increasingly uncertainty-averse (Liekefett et al., 2021). Maintaining beliefs in the face of counterevidence requires increasingly complicated and unlikely explanations (Keeley, 1999). Any doubt has the potential to bring down the whole belief system, leading believers to become more averse to uncertainty (Liekefett et al., 2021). Previous research has shown that when beliefs are proven untrue, believers often rationalize to maintain the belief rather than face the embarrassment of being wrong (Barkun, 2018). This may be one of the roots of the extreme defensiveness described by participants. According to some participants’ descriptions of their loved ones, the pain of potentially questioning their beliefs outweighed the pain of losing their relationships. It is also possible that a sense of comfort provided by QAnon plays a role in defensive reactions. Conspiracy narratives ascribe meaning to apparently random events (Douglas et al., 2017) and assume that world events are controllable, which may be comforting (Sullivan et al., 2010). The prospect of accepting that the world is chaotic and unpredictable may contribute to the unwillingness to entertain opposing viewpoints.

Within these shifting dynamics, participants overwhelmingly felt disrespected by their loved ones’ need to proselytize about QAnon, and many reported being belittled and having their boundaries disregarded. This aligns with Mousaw’s (2022) and Waltman’s (2023) findings that people close to QAnon believers say that they often promote their beliefs or try to convince others. This pattern of boundary transgression and need to proselytize seem to be a key difference between QAnon and other conspiracy beliefs, which are often regarded as harmless (Sutton & Douglas, 2022). While further research is needed, it is possible that QAnon impacts relationships more than other conspiracy movements—not only due to its popularity and worldview-altering nature, but also because its adherents proselytize more, making the beliefs more difficult for others to ignore.

RQ2: How do loved ones of QAnon-affiliated individuals deal with these changes to their relationships?

Participants were highly motivated to understand QAnon and why their loved ones became involved with it. Some understood QAnon to be a cult, while others saw it as an addiction. The utility of these comparisons is in helping participants better understand their loved ones. Since QAnon’s reach is unprecedented (Garry et al., 2021) and its impact on relationships is an under-researched phenomenon (Moskalenko, 2022), drawing upon knowledge of more familiar concepts such as these may help participants understand their loved ones better and contribute to a sense of closure. For example, participants often expressed acceptance that their loved one will not change until they want to—something frequently said about people in the throes of addiction. Understanding this seems to have helped some participants shed feelings of guilt over what they could have done to help, thereby enabling them to begin healing. Overall, participants’ strong desire to understand their loved ones reflects Mousaw’s (2022) findings that participants with relationships that were damaged or broken by QAnon still cared deeply for their loved ones and thought of them often. Participants in the present research overwhelmingly wanted to understand their loved ones, either to heal the relationship or heal from its disintegration.

Participants used a variety of active approaches when trying to repair their relationships or pull their loved ones away from QAnon. Some of the more successful approaches were re-grounding and focusing conversations on other subjects. While additional research is necessary, experts have recommended these as best practice approaches for maintaining relationships with QAnon-following loved ones (Sommer, 2023). They may not always be effective, as many participants emphasized that their loved ones felt compelled to proselytize about QAnon and had lost interest in other topics; however, several participants found some success with them. This could be a focus for further research into healing relationships damaged by QAnon.

Previous work by Tandoc et al. (2019) found that people were more likely to correct fake news shared by close relations than by casual acquaintances. In line with this, a few participants in this study had some success with gentle debunking or Socratic-style questioning aimed at getting their loved ones to reflect on their beliefs without escalating into conflict. It is possible that participants in both studies sought to improve their shared sense of communal orientation (Afifi et al., 2016) by trying to get loved ones to question their beliefs. While this worked for some, other participants indicated that similar approaches had led to conflict and defensiveness. This finding aligns with the wider literature, whereby some research has found that debunking may backfire and reinforce the beliefs (Lewandowsky et al., 2012; Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). Although more research is needed, debunking may not be an effective approach for many. Once someone has adopted a conspiracist worldview, it can be difficult to find points of agreement on the basic nature of reality (Franks et al., 2017), which appears to be the case for many participants and their loved ones. Critical thinking abilities (Lantian et al., 2021), individual receptivity, the tone of the conversation, and preexisting relationship dynamics may all play a role in the effectiveness of debunking for specific individuals.

Some participants simply stopped trying to get their loved ones to abandon QAnon. These participants were willing to accept a new, if more distant, relationship paradigm in order to preserve the relationship. However, others decided to let go of their relationships and focus instead on healing from them. To successfully repair a relational bond, both people in the relationship must be willing to reinvest in it (Afifi et al., 2016). Many participants decided to disengage, citing tolls on their mental health or exhaustion with the process of trying to maintain the relationship. Echoing findings by Mousaw (2022) and Waltman (2023), several participants even said they were grieving their loved ones as though they had died. The grieving process may help these participants heal and accept that their loved ones will never revert to their pre-QAnon selves.

Theoretical considerations

The theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL; Afifi et al., 2016) provides a useful framework for understanding the impacts conspiracy belief can have on the resilience of close relationships, such as those explored in this study. According to the TRRL, in relationships where both people validate each other regularly, emotional reserves are accrued which help protect the relationship during stressful situations. A shared communal orientation towards life is argued to be important for successful relationship maintenance, as this outlook increases the likelihood of building emotional reserves. Relational partners who do not regularly invest in their relationships are more likely to perceive threat from or engage in conflict with their loved ones during stressful situations, which depletes emotional reserves and leads to more conflict, ultimately damaging the relationship. If one person in a relationship believes in conspiracies, this has the potential to lead to conflict, deplete the relationship’s emotional reserves, and damage the sense of shared communal orientation.

This study’s findings show that believers’ increasingly radical beliefs may have damaged their shared sense of communal orientation with their loved ones. Many participants described their loved ones exhibiting callousness towards them, which lends support to the TRRL’s proposition that damage to a relationship’s emotional reserves can lead to a lack of empathy and respect towards relational partners, consequently heightening conflict and feelings of contempt. The disrespect shown during conflicts over QAnon likely served to further deplete the relationships’ emotional reserves and may have made this study’s participants less likely to want to continue investing in the relationships.

Limitations and future directions

While the present study has qualitatively explored the impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships to a deeper extent than ever before, it has some limitations. Participants were not asked about their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, or disability status; thus, it would be useful for future studies to consider these demographic characteristics in their investigations. Another limitation is that participants were recruited from a Subreddit that functions as a support group for people whose relationships have been affected by QAnon. There may be many people with QAnon-involved loved ones who do not feel that it affects their relationships. However, the fact that there is a community of over 275,000 people who do feel that it has affected their relationships was sufficient to justify a need for this study, which aimed to highlight the existence of this phenomenon and explore its impact on close relationships rather than measure its scale.

The impact of QAnon belief on relationships is an under-researched phenomenon; thus, there are many avenues for future research to explore. Although people with conspiracy-oriented worldviews are difficult to recruit as participants (Franks et al., 2017), interviewing QAnon followers and their loved ones would provide a clearer picture of QAnon’s impact on relationships. Asking questions about specific arguments or interactions they have had would provide a clearer picture of the dynamics at play in conversations about QAnon beliefs. Gaining a better understanding of how both people feel in those tense moments could provide insight into possible interventions that would be effective in repairing relationships damaged by QAnon. Similarly, future research could explore the role of partisan identity in navigating these relational dynamics between QAnon believers and non-believers, building on such work as Van Duyn (2023).

It would also be useful for future research to use random sampling methods to quantitatively measure the percentage of people who have QAnon-believing loved ones; what proportion of that group feels that QAnon has impacted their relationships; and to what extent. Answering these questions would provide a clearer sense of the scale of the issue. It would also be beneficial to investigate the relational impact of other conspiracy beliefs compared to that of QAnon. Although QAnon’s negative impact on relationships seems unprecedented, there appears to be a dearth of empirical research showing this. If QAnon is found to impact relationships more than other conspiracy beliefs, subsequent research could investigate why that is the case. In addition, while the present research did not seek to find a causal link between QAnon belief and the need to proselytize, this was cited by most participants as something that led to conflict and relationship strain and may be a promising area for future research to explore. Other directions for further study include researching the psychological motives underpinning QAnon followers’ defensive reactions, the effectiveness of Socratic-style questioning and debunking for QAnon specifically, and individual difference factors that may influence their effectiveness for different people. Lastly, a fruitful avenue for future quantitative work would be to assess whether relational impacts differ between romantic partnerships and familial ones, as such comparisons were beyond the scope of this qualitative work.

Conclusion

This study provides insight into how QAnon can impact relationships. Participants reported significant deterioration of their relationships as a result of their loved ones’ beliefs in QAnon. These beliefs were perceived by participants as driving their loved ones’ social isolation, proselytization, boundary transgression, and defensiveness when challenged. Consequently, while some participants were still actively trying to maintain or heal their relationships, others felt that they had tried everything and had shifted focus to healing from the ending of their relationships. These findings build upon previous research which found that QAnon had a deleterious effect on relationships and led to emotional distress for people with QAnon-following loved ones (Moskalenko et al., 2022; Mousaw, 2022). However, the utility of this study’s findings may also be relevant for belief in myriad other conspiracies, as research shows conspiracy belief is underpinned by similar psychological processes regardless of the precise conspiracy the person subscribes to (Douglas et al., 2017). Meanwhile, our findings also provide empirical support for the TRRL (Afifi et al., 2016) and its notion of relational load. The extreme manner in which the belief systems of participants’ loved ones diverged from their own, and the consequences this had for their communal orientation, show that this consistent pattern of stress on the relational load leads to a depletion of relational resources and, in some cases, complete dissolution of the relationship.

This study supports the assertion that extreme, entrenched beliefs, such as belief in QAnon, can lead to relationship breakdowns; however, in many cases, individuals make frequent attempts to prevent relationship erosion or repair ruptures that have already occurred between them and their loved one. Thus, these findings can inform the development of effective relationship maintenance and repair strategies for individuals whose loved ones have developed a belief in a conspiracy theory. The findings may be of particular use to psychotherapists who work with couples and families whose relationships are fractured by one or more individuals’ conspiracy beliefs. Readers with QAnon-affiliated loved ones may also directly benefit from learning about the experiences of this study’s participants; what tactics they used for reparation and healing; and which approaches they deemed effective. However, despite this study’s important practical and theoretical contributions, the impact of QAnon on relationships remains an under-researched phenomenon. As such, more research is needed to explore methods of repairing and restoring relationships that have been damaged by QAnon allegiance, as well as effective ways individuals can heal from the loss of their loved ones to QAnon.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - “I one-hundred thousand percent blame it on QAnon”: The impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships

Supplemental Material for “I one-hundred thousand percent blame it on QAnon”: The impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships by Lauren Mastroni and Robyn Mooney in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Open research statement

As part of IARR’s encouragement of open research practices, the authors have provided the following information: This research was not pre-registered. The data used in the research cannot be shared with any person because, as they are qualitative interview transcripts, to post them publicly or share them with others would be a breach of confidentiality. However, an extensive summary of interview quotes can be obtained at: or by emailing: laurenmastroni@gmail.com. The materials used in the research can be publicly posted. The materials can be obtained at: https://osf.io/3htz7/ or by emailing: laurenmastroni@gmail.com.

ORCID iDs

Lauren Mastroni

Dr Robyn Mooney

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Note

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