Does It Pay to Spread Conspiracy Theories?

On the reputational costs and benefits of spreading conspiracy theories.

Psychology Today/January 17, 2025

By Devon Frye

Key points

• A new study examines the reputational consequences of spreading conspiracy theories.

• The findings show that conspiracy claims can either improve the reputation of spreaders or harm them.

• Social conflict improves positive reputational outcomes of conspiracy spreading and minimizes negative ones.

The previous post in this series examined the Adaptive Conspiracism Hypothesis (Van Prooijen and Van Vugt, 2018). According to this perspective, the tendency to engage in conspiracy thinking is innate in humans. It also suggests individuals could benefit from spreading conspiracy theories. To test the benefits of spreading conspiracy theories, the researchers in a new investigation recruited subjects via the online platform Prolific to participate in one of several experimental studies.

The studies varied from each other in important ways—including sample sizes, which ranged from 290 to 560—but followed the same basic design. Participants were presented with a scenario, then were asked to rate their perception of the personality traits of an individual (who was sometimes a conspiracy spreader) from it. These traits included the following:

• Dominance: perceiving the individual as socially dominant or forceful

• Competence: perceiving them as having skill or potential

• Warmth: perceiving them as agreeable, helpful, or unselfish

• Leader-like qualities: perceiving them as possessing the qualities of leadership, such as the ability to coordinate groups of people

The exact content of the scenario varied for each respondent, so the researchers could compare differences in how they responded to important factors drawn from the Adaptive Conspiracism Hypothesis.

Reputational Consequences of Conspiracy Spreading

The first two studies, one of which was a smaller pilot investigation, aimed to establish baseline comparisons. These examined differences between how people perceive someone who spreads conspiracy theories and someone who doesn’t under otherwise identical conditions. Participants were asked to imagine that they were a member of a tribe living somewhere in the Amazon rainforest. There, they were in competition with another tribe for the area’s natural resources. Several of their tribe’s members have recently been bitten by poisonous snakes and died from it. Moreover, another member of their tribe, named Anu, tells them where they think the snakes came from. For some participants, Anu says that the snakes just moved in by accident and that they should be careful. For the rest of the participants, Anu says the competing group placed the snakes in their territory on purpose to do them harm.

In the first condition, Anu is neutral, providing a natural explanation for the snakes. In the second condition, Anu is a conspiracy theory spreader. In either condition, participants provided their evaluation of Anu’s personality. The results suggest this difference in presentation affected how they perceived that personality. In both studies, they found the conspiracy spreader persona to be more dominant, but less warm than the neutral version of Anu. However, no differences were found regarding perceptions of competence or leader-like qualities.

These results suggest engaging in conspiracy claims has reputational consequences. Study 2 was designed to see how group conflict might affect this. In the preceding studies, a moderate level of intergroup conflict over scarce resources was suggested for both the conspiracy spreader and the neutral person. Study 2 provides the same two scenarios, but includes three variations. Anu could be a conspiracy spreader or not, as before. However, the snake issue was presented as occurring in one of three social contexts: no competition with another group, physical conflict with another group, or the same moderate conflict over resources.

Little difference was found between the two conflict scenarios, but both were quite distinct from the scenario with no intergroup conflict. In all of these conditions, the conspiracy spreader was perceived as more dominant and less warm. However, when any conflict was present, the difference in warmth was not so pronounced. In other words, conflict mitigated negative perceptions. Conspiracy spreaders were perceived as less competent than neutrals, but only in the scenario with no conflict. Again, the presence of intergroup strife seems to cushion the negative impact of spreading conspiracy claims.

Study 3 simplified the experiment while also adding a twist. Since there was no difference between types of conflict, only the moderate resource conflict condition was included. However, the "no conflict" condition was replaced with a scenario where the subject’s tribe actually had a cooperative relationship with the other group. In this study, conspiracy spreaders were again considered more dominant in either condition. Participants considered spreaders to be less competent and leader-like in the cooperative scenario, but equally competent and leader-like in the competitive one. Spreaders also seemed less warm in both scenarios but, again, conflict scenarios mitigated this, making the difference between them and neutrals not as vast.

Finally, Study 4 replicated Study 3, but with an important exception. It still included comparing a conspiracy spreader versus a neutral in conditions of either conflict or cooperation with another group. However, it replaced the threat of snake in the rainforest with a vicious cyberattack in a modern workplace. This was intended to see whether the results would be consistent with a situation that most respondents would probably have more experienced with. In fact, the results did not change. Spreaders were perceived as more dominant in either case. They were less competent and leader-like, but only in the cooperative scenario. They were also less warm, but with a smaller difference between them and neutrals in the conflict scenario. This suggests a robust series of findings.

Incentivizing Conspiracy Theories

In their entirety, the findings of these studies suggest that there really are reputational consequences for individuals who spread conspiracy beliefs. However, these are not always negative. In fact, being perceived as socially dominant can be advantageous in many social situations. It is also the one factor that is consistently linked to promoting conspiracy theories. The authors note that choosing to spread these claims “is a stable strategy for people to be seen as tough and forceful” (Cao, van Prooijen, & van Vugt, 2025: 16). There are also potential reputational costs. Conspiracy spreaders are generally seen as less warm and less competent. However, much of the difference disappears when there are perceptions of conflict with another group. As such, these findings seem largely consistent with the Adaptive Conspiracism Hypothesis.

Conspiracy theories can be very problematic for society as a whole. Nonetheless, research like this demonstrates that people can derive benefits from spreading them. These benefits provide an individual incentive to keep sharing harmful misinformation, whatever the greater cost. This helps explain why people might choose to disseminate conspiracy claims, but it also might point toward ways to help combat the spread.

If it is a matter of incentive, for instance, then the logical step would be to take steps to raise the costs of spreading them. This would be especially important for large public platforms or for sources who reach a large audience. There are many possible ways to do just that but, of course, this approach presents its own challenges. As is often the case, further research will be needed to determine what methods are the most effective, the most practical, and the most palatable to the general public.

References

Cao, S., van Prooijen, J. W., & van Vugt, M. (2025). The motivations and reputational consequences of spreading conspiracy theories. British Journal of Social Psychology, 64(1), e12784.

Van Prooijen, J. W., & Van Vugt, M. (2018). Conspiracy theories: Evolved functions and psychological mechanisms. Perspectives on psychological science, 13(6), 770-788.

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