Escalating Cognition: Explaining the Emergence of Political Violence from the Students for a Democratic Society

Why—and how—did some activists in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) come to view violence as a necessary and justifiable form of political action, while others in the same organization did not? This thesis proposes the theory of escalating cognition to describe and explain the variation in the cognitive and behavioral trajectories of individuals with comparable movement exposure. Building on existing accounts of the emergence of political violence and drawing on insights from cognitive psychology and social movement studies, the theory identifies a recurring mechanism through which actors rationalize tactical escalation, experiment with escalated forms of action, and update their knowledge of political action. The thesis uses process tracing to examine three second-generation SDS leaders—Bill Ayers, Robert Pardun, and Mark Rudd—engaging primarily with their memoirs. The case analyses find substantial evidence for the operation of escalating cognition and support the author’s critique of existing psychological, ideological, and rationality-oriented explanations. Future research could further test the theory through more diverse case selections and across different sociopolitical contexts.