have little agency in political circumstances. However, there may also be an ideological affinity between conspiracy theories and extreme political viewpoints—for example, in their distrust of state institutions (Sutton & Douglas 2020). Further work is required to disentangle these processes and determine their relative importance (Imhoff et al. 2022b).
WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES?
By far the bulk of research on the psychology of conspiracy beliefs has focused on their antecedents. However, heated political contests, international conflicts, a growing antivaccine movement, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic have in recent years generated significant research interest in the impacts of conspiracy theories (Douglas 2021). The research that has emerged generally suggests that these impacts are largely negative, whether socially or psychologically. Thus, conspiracy theories may worsen rather than relieve the psychological frustrations that drive people toward them (Douglas et al. 2017).
One of the major effects of conspiracy theories seems to be to discourage engagement in mainstream political processes. In one of the earlier studies on the impact of conspiracy theories, Butler et al. (1995) found that after watching the film JFK, which presents a conspiracy narrative about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, people were less likely to want to engage in politics—e.g., in terms of intention to vote or to make political contributions—compared to those who had not seen the film. Conceptually similar findings were obtained by Jolley & Douglas (2014a), who asked an experimental group of participants to read conspiracy theories about the sinister actions of governments and found that, compared to a control group who read refutations of these conspiracy theories, they subsequently felt powerless and disenchanted and, in turn, were less inclined to vote in an upcoming election. Similarly, other studies have shown that people who read about conspiracy allegations reported lower trust in politics compared to a control condition (Einstein & Glick 2015) and were less motivated to engage in political action (Uscinski & Parent 2014). Other research has demonstrated that people who chronically believe in conspiracy theories tend to think that the political system is unresponsive to citizens’ demands and therefore tend to engage less in traditional forms of political participation (Ardèvol-Abreu et al. 2020). Conspiracy theories can affect how, as well as whether, people vote. For example, conspiracy beliefs unique to the United Kingdom’s 2016 Brexit referendum predicted British people’s support for leaving the European Union and their actual vote to leave the European Union (Jolley et al. 2022).
Whereas beliefs in conspiracy theories seem to decrease engagement in normative political activities, they are associated with radicalized and extremist methods (Sternisko et al. 2020), violent political intentions (Rottweiler & Gill 2022), endorsement of violence as a means to express disagreement with the government (Uscinski & Parent 2014), protests (Imhoff & Bruder 2014), occupation of buildings (Mari et al. 2017), and vandalism of 5G phone masts that allegedly helped spread COVID-19 (Jolley & Paterson 2020). Belief in conspiracy theories has also been linked with proclivity to engage in minor criminal and fraudulent activities, such as paying for goods with cash to avoid taxation (Jolley et al. 2019). The belief that others engage in unscrupulous behavior is associated with people’s own tendency toward the same behavior. Specifically, people are willing to entertain conspiracy theories to the degree that they think they would conspire themselves, given the same motives and opportunity (Douglas & Sutton 2011).
Conspiracy theories are also associated with prejudice and outgroup derogation. For example, belief in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories predicts more general anti-Semitic attitudes and also discrimination against Jews (Bilewicz et al. 2013, Golec de Zavala & Cichocka 2012, Kofta et al. 2020). Other research suggests that belief in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories predicts anti-Israeli attitudes and also racism toward other groups (e.g., Chinese people in Malaysia) who are not seen
