The Need for Chaos is defined as a desire for a new beginning through the destruction of order and established structures. It’s a mindset to gain status by disrupting the established order and sharing hostile rumors, creating confusion among those with the status they seek (Petersen et al., 2023). Collective narcissism is defined as the belief that one’s group, in this case a religious group, is exceptional but insufficiently recognized by others (De Zavala & Bierwiaczonek, 2020). Collective narcissism can be further divided into agentic and communal forms. The aim of this study (N = 231, 49.8% female, Mage = 52.41; SD = 14.69) was to explore whether the Four Basic Dimensions of Religiousness (Saroglou, 2011): Believing, Bonding, Behaving, Belonging and Religious Collective Narcissism predict the Need for Chaos in a predominantly Catholic sample (98.3% Catholic). The results revealed a single statistically significant predictor of the Need for Chaos: Agentic Collective Religious Narcissism, though a further commonality analysis revealed that while its unique variance and variance shared with Communal Collective Narcissism showed positive results, variance shared with the Four Basic Dimensions of Religiousness achieved the opposite effect of suppression. These results suggest that the main thing responsible for the Need for Chaos is Religious Narcissism (agentic uniquely and shared with Communal) though generalized religiosity achieves the effect of suppression.
Keywords: Need for Chaos, Collective Narcissism, Four basic Dimensions of Religiousness