Consequences of Conspiracy Theories: From a Macro-Level to a Micro-Level

The majority of research on the psychology of conspiracy theories had focused on examining the individual and contextual factors that attract people toward conspiracy theories, and only recently, researchers have broadened their focus to also investigate the consequences of belief in conspiracy theories (for a review, see Douglas & Sutton, Reference Douglas and Sutton2023). A major focus in this area has been to clarify the implications of conspiracy theories for macro-social processes, such as drifts in politics and public opinion, society’s response to a climate emergency or a global pandemic, or dynamics of intergroup conflict. Thus, research has largely focused on how conspiracy beliefs influence people’s attitudes and behavior in important societal domains.

For instance, researchers have investigated how conspiracy beliefs can influence people’s political attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, previous work indicates that conspiracy beliefs reduce people’s political engagement through conventional means of political participation (e.g., voting intention; Jolley & Douglas, Reference Jolley and Douglas2014a; Uscinski & Parent, Reference Uscinski and Parent2014). However, conspiracy believers are more likely to endorse non-normative, even extreme or violent, forms of political action (e.g., participation in a violent protest; Ardèvol-Abreu et al., Reference Ardèvol-Abreu, Gil de Zúñiga and Gámez2020; Imhoff et al., Reference Imhoff, Dieterle and Lamberty2021; Rottweiler & Gill, Reference Rottweiler and Gill2020). In the context of the environmental crisis, conspiracy theories have the potential to hamper societal efforts to minimize the consequences of climate change. Specifically, belief in conspiracy theories about climate change is associated with lower pro-environmental attitudes, lower intentions to engage in pro-environmental behavior and less support for pro-environmental policies (Biddlestone et al., Reference Biddlestone, Azevedo and van der Linden2022). Similarly, anti-science conspiracy beliefs might hinder the response to a pandemic given their association with more negative attitudes towards vaccines (Yang et al., Reference Yang, Luo and Jia2021) and lower intentions to get vaccinated (Bertin et al., Reference Bertin, Nera and Delouvée2020; Chen et al., Reference Chen, Zhang, Young, Wu and Zhu2021; Jolley & Douglas, Reference Jolley and Douglas2014b). This disconnection of conspiracy believers from mainstream politics and social causes is congruent with their greater levels of distrust in institutional systems and epistemic authorities, such as the scientific community (Einstein & Glick, Reference Einstein and Glick2015; Oliver & Wood, Reference Oliver and Wood2014; Rutjens et al., Reference Rutjens, Heine, Sutton and van Harreveld2018; van Prooijen et al., Reference van Prooijen, Spadaro and Wang2022). Furthermore, some work indicates that specific conspiracy theories can also evoke intergroup prejudice and discrimination against minority groups (Bilewicz et al., Reference Bilewicz, Winiewski, Kofta and Wójcik2013; Kofta et al., Reference Kofta, Soral and Bilewicz2020; Obaidi et al., Reference Obaidi, Kunst, Ozer and Kimel2022), as arguably occurred with COVID–19 conspiracy theories during the outbreak of the pandemic (e.g., Moonshot, 2020).

While understanding the impact of conspiracy theories through this macro-social lens is crucial, we also consider it important to shed light on the micro-social consequences of conspiracy theories. That is, how do conspiracy theories affect individuals and their immediate social contexts? Although there is extensive knowledge to help understand why people fall into “rabbit holes” of conspiracy theories (Sutton & Douglas, Reference Sutton and Douglas2022), the individual and interpersonal consequences of falling into these rabbit holes are much less well understood. We therefore adopt this micro-level of analysis to discuss whether and how people’s interpersonal relationships might be shaped by belief in conspiracy theories.

Do Conspiracy Theories Affect Interpersonal Relationships?

Empirical evidence addressing this question is scarce. One example is a recent investigation of the interpersonal consequences of QAnon conspiracy beliefs (Mousaw, Reference Mousaw2022). In this study, 426 users of the r/QAnonCasualties forum from the online platform Reddit, who self-identified as relatives, partners, or close contacts of a QAnon supporter, answered different questions about the quality of their relationship before and after this person started to support QAnon. The results showed that participants recognized drastic changes in their relationship quality. After the person close to them started supporting QAnon, participants perceived less closeness in their relationship with this person, lower relationship satisfaction, and they reported a lower frequency and quality of their interactions (Mousaw, Reference Mousaw2022).

In a set of studies, the authors of the present article found that conspiracy beliefs were associated with, and led to, lower relationship satisfaction (Toribio-Flórez et al., Reference Toribio-Flórez, Green, Douglas and Sutton2022). In some of these studies, participants listed people from their social network and reported both their perceptions of these people’s conspiracy beliefs and of their relationship satisfaction with them. Additionally, participants reported their own conspiracy beliefs. We observed that higher perceived conspiracy beliefs were associated with lower relationship satisfaction. Critically, this association was consistently more pronounced among participants who reported weaker conspiracy beliefs. In other follow-up studies, we asked participants to imagine that the person they listed endorsed (vs. opposed) a conspiracy theory and, similarly to Mousaw (Reference Mousaw2022), we measured whether participants would recognize this hypothetical event to influence their relationship satisfaction. Indeed, if the person endorsed (vs. opposed) the conspiracy theory, participants anticipated lower relationship satisfaction with them, and this was especially the case for participants with weaker conspiracy beliefs themselves (Toribio-Flórez et al., 2022).

These two different investigations support the idea that conspiracy theories can erode interpersonal relationships, despite some methodological limitations (e.g., reliance on retrospective measures and cross-sectional data). Furthermore, they suggest that this effect should partly rest on interindividual differences within a given relationship regarding the endorsement of such theories. However, further empirical work is necessary to clarify why this effect would occur. In the following sections, we will elaborate on different plausible explanations.

Attitudinal Distancing

One explanation for why conspiracy theories might erode interpersonal relationships can be due to a process of attitudinal distancing between the conspiracy believers and people in their social context. Conspiracy theories do likely trigger attitude change among conspiracy believers about topics, objects or individuals related to the conspiracy theory or the conspiracy theory itself. For instance, it is plausible that QAnon supporters change (or strengthen) their evaluation of former U.S. president Donald Trump after internalizing that the latter is fighting against a paedophilic network of liberal politicians, or that believers of climate change conspiracy theories develop negative attitudes against vegetarianism or pro-environmental policies. Previous research has shown that exposing people to conspiracy theories about the death of Princess Diana increased people’s agreement with such narratives, without them being aware (Douglas & Sutton, Reference Douglas and Sutton2008). Another investigation found that exposure to conspiracy narratives describing how the results of a democratic election were rigged influenced people’s attitudes towards democracy (Albertson & Guiler, Reference Albertson and Guiler2020). Additionally, conspiracy beliefs are more frequent among the political extremes (Alper & Imhoff, Reference Alper and Imhoff2022; Imhoff et al., Reference Imhoff, Zimmer, Klein, António, Babinska, Bangerter, Bilewicz, Blanuša, Bovan, Bužarovska, Cichocka, Delouvée, Douglas, Dyrendal, Etienne, Gjoneska, Graf, Gualda, Hirschberger and van Prooijen2022; van Prooijen et al., Reference van Prooijen, Krouwel and Pollet2015), which highlights their potential contribution to the polarization of political attitudes.

The attitude change that conspiracy believers may experience can distance their attitudes from those shared by their immediate social context. According to a broad body of literature on attitude (dis-)similarity, this attitudinal distancing may have negative effects on interpersonal liking (Byrne, Reference Byrne1961; Singh et al., Reference Singh, Wegener, Sankaran, Bhullar, Ang, Chia, Cheong and Chen2017; Zorn et al., Reference Zorn, Mata and Alves2022) and on the chances of engaging in affiliative behavior, when the differing attitudes are strong (Philipp-Muller et al., Reference Philipp-Muller, Wallace, Sawicki, Patton and Wegener2020). In part, these effects of attitude dissimilarity can be attributed to a decrease of interpersonal trust (Singh et al., Reference Singh, Wegener, Sankaran, Singh, Lin, Seow, Teng and Shuli2015, Reference Singh, Wegener, Sankaran, Bhullar, Ang, Chia, Cheong and Chen2017), a variable that is also negatively related to conspiracy beliefs (Goertzel, Reference Goertzel1994; Meuer & Imhoff, Reference Meuer and Imhoff2021). Thus, both conspiracy believers and those associated with them might view their relationships to be negatively affected by increasing attitudinal distancing and reduced levels of interpersonal trust. This may frustrate basic social needs and activate compensatory mechanisms to find social validation in other relationships. In the case of conspiracy believers, they might opt to approach like-minded communities of conspiracy believers, as it seems to occur in online contexts (Brugnoli et al., Reference Brugnoli, Cinelli, Quattrociocchi and Scala2019; Klein et al., Reference Klein, Clutton and Dunn2019). Similarly, people who have relationships with conspiracy believers might prioritize new or pre-existing relationships with like-minded people who, in this case, do not believe in (or even oppose) conspiracy theories.

A special case might be that of close relationships that rest on stronger bonds (e.g., kinship, romantic partnerships, close friendships), as these might not be as easily replaceable. Future research should specifically assess the impact of the attitudinal distancing associated with the endorsement of conspiracy theories in this type of relationships. We propose that recent research on the effect of attitude similarity in close relationships could be a reasonable starting point (e.g., Moore et al., Reference Moore, Uchino, Baucom, Behrends and Sanbonmatsu2017).

Conspiracy Beliefs as Stigmatizing Beliefs

Another reason why conspiracy beliefs might affect interpersonal relationships is people’s evaluation of the endorsement of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are commonly regarded as flawed narratives that are believed by marginal social groups (Barkun, Reference Barkun2015). An example of this negative perception is people’s frequent association of conspiracy beliefs with mental instability and problems of mental health (Green et al., Reference Green, Toribio-Flórez, Douglas, Brunkow and Sutton2023; Klein et al., Reference Klein, van der Linden, Pantazi, Kissine, Bilewicz, Cichocka and Soral2015; Sparkman, Reference Sparkman2012). Although conspiracy beliefs positively correlate with some clinical traits (e.g., paranoia, schizotypy; Darwin et al., Reference Darwin, Neave and Holmes2011), they are clearly distinct phenomena (Alsuhibani et al., Reference Alsuhibani, Shevlin, Freeman, Sheaves and Bentall2022; Imhoff & Lamberty, Reference Imhoff and Lamberty2018). Another example is people’s tendency to make use of the label “conspiracy theory” to refer to events they disbelieve (Douglas et al., Reference Douglas, van Prooijen and Sutton2021), which reflects the stigmatizing value of such a label. Furthermore, people anticipate that the endorsement of conspiracy theories entails social costs, like being negatively evaluated and socially excluded (Green et al., Reference Green, Toribio-Flórez, Douglas, Brunkow and Sutton2023; Lantian et al., Reference Lantian, Muller, Nurra, Klein, Berjot and Pantazi2018). Taken together, these findings suggest that belief in conspiracy theories is largely stigmatized.

The social stigma surrounding the endorsement of conspiracy theories might contribute to the erosion of interpersonal relationships in two different ways. As we just mentioned, one way is the negative evaluations and associated reactions from people who disbelieve conspiracy theories. The endorsement of conspiracy theories can impact basic processes of impression formation (Green et al., Reference Green, Toribio-Flórez, Douglas, Brunkow and Sutton2023) and ultimately determine people’s willingness to establish social interactions and relationships with those who believe in conspiracy theories. For example, the endorsement of conspiracy theories in online dating profiles can truncate people’s chances of finding a partner (Green et al., Reference Green, Kamitz, Toribio-Flórez and Douglas2022).

A second way in which the stigma of conspiracy beliefs can negatively impact interpersonal relationships is via stigma-by-association (Pryor et al., Reference Pryor, Reeder and Monroe2012). People who have a relationship with a conspiracy believer might fear that other people’s negative evaluations of the conspiracy believer generalize to those close to them. Therefore, they might opt to socially distance themselves from the conspiracy believer or even actively contribute to mechanisms of social exclusion. However, the social isolation of conspiracy believers may accelerate their fall into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories (Poon et al., Reference Poon, Chen and Wong2020; van Prooijen, Reference van Prooijen2016), increase their need to create new dyadic bonds with other like-minded conspiracy believers (Biddlestone et al., Reference Biddlestone, Green, Cichocka, Sutton and Douglas2021), and ultimately create even more irreconcilable conditions for their relationship with non-conspiracy believers.

Conspiracy Theories and Social Norms

Researchers have further argued that the effect of conspiracy theories on interpersonal relationships might be related to the misperception of social norms (Pummerer, Reference Pummerer2022; van Prooijen et al., Reference van Prooijen, Spadaro and Wang2022). According to this rationale, strong belief in conspiracy theories implies an altered sense of the social reality consisting of the misrepresentation of the social norms and values that regulate social relationships (Pummerer, Reference Pummerer2022). This biased perception of social norms could rest on the distrust conspiracy believers show in the institutional authorities responsible for the signaling and enforcement of social norms (van Prooijen et al., Reference van Prooijen, Spadaro and Wang2022), and on the frequent interaction with like-minded conspiracy believers, who reinforce the adoption of alternative normative frameworks (Pummerer, Reference Pummerer2022).

An example of this normative misrepresentation is that conspiracy believers tend to perceive that others also share their conspiracy beliefs (Cookson et al., Reference Cookson, Jolley, Dempsey and Povey2021a, Reference Cookson, Jolley, Dempsey and Povey2021b). This sense of false consensus may also reflect in their expectation of how others will behave. For instance, people who believe in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories have been observed to underestimate others’ vaccination intentions (Cookson et al., Reference Cookson, Jolley, Dempsey and Povey2021b). Moreover, conspiracy believers’ own vaccination intentions were positively correlated with the misestimation of other people’s intentions (Cookson et al., Reference Cookson, Jolley, Dempsey and Povey2021b). These findings suggest that, indeed, conspiracy believers misperceive their beliefs and behaviors as normative, accepted and shared by their social context. Critically, this misperception might lead conspiracy believers to engage in non-normative behavior and to violate social norms (Imhoff et al., Reference Imhoff, Dieterle and Lamberty2021; Pummerer, Reference Pummerer2022).

The misrepresentation of social norms, and the potential consequences it arguably has on behavior, might have negative implications for interpersonal relationships (Pummerer, Reference Pummerer2022; van Prooijen et al., Reference van Prooijen, Spadaro and Wang2022). Firstly, the misrepresentation (and/or violation) of social norms has the capacity to erode interpersonal trust, any attempts of cooperation, reciprocity and prosociality, and ultimately, the interdependence between individuals (van Prooijen et al., Reference van Prooijen, Spadaro and Wang2022). Interestingly, these negative consequences on interpersonal trust and cooperation have already been observed to be associated with belief in conspiracy theories (e.g., Alper et al., Reference Alper, Douglas and Capraro2021; Meuer & Imhoff, Reference Meuer and Imhoff2021; Moon & Travaglino, Reference Moon and Travaglino2021; van der Linden, Reference van der Linden2015).

Secondly, engaging in non-normative behavior might entail different types of risks, such as social (i.e., punishment), economic (e.g., a fine or getting fired) or even physical (i.e., health-related) risks. For example, the assault on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, perpetrated and justified by political extremists, has partly been attributed to the QAnon conspiracy theory (Tollefson, Reference Tollefson2021) and it resulted in serious penal sanctions to the heads of this violent protest (Vargas, Reference Vargas2022). In the case of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, the opposition to the use of vaccines entails severe physical risks for those conspiracy believers who decide not to get vaccinated and to those around them. Similarly, in the context of the COVID–19 pandemic, those who endorsed COVID-related conspiracy theories were more likely to break regulations aimed at minimizing the spread of the virus (van Prooijen et al., Reference van Prooijen, Etienne, Kutiyski and Krouwel2021), and thus, they increased the risk of infection for themselves and for others. Prior research suggests that conspiracy believers, congruently with their beliefs, likely underestimate these risks, and that this explains why they engage in risk behavior (Chayinska et al., Reference Chayinska, Uluğ, Ayanian, Gratzel, Brik, Kende and McGarty2022). However, people who do not believe in conspiracy theories —and thus, who presumably have more accurate perceptions of risk—, might decide to distance themselves from conspiracy believers to prevent being exposed to (the consequences of) their risky behavior. Ultimately, this can jeopardize interpersonal relationships, as occurred in the anecdotal case opening the present article.

Finally, it is important to consider that conspiracy believers will share their own beliefs, and perhaps, that this spread of conspiracy (mis)information may be perceived in and of itself as a violation of social or moral norms. In the end, the spread of conspiracy theories can be societally harmful (Douglas, Reference Douglas2021a) and even have fatal consequences (e.g., as mentioned above, the increase of people’s mortality by refusing to vaccinate). If it was the case that the spread of conspiracy theories was considered as a norm violation, one would expect people to react punitively against conspiracy believers, and that these punitive reactions contribute to the deterioration of their interpersonal relationships. Although further research is needed to support this rationale, previous research provides indirect evidence. For example, in the context of the US, some studies suggest that Republicans are less critical (or even supportive) of the spread of conspiracy theories in comparison to Democrats (Dow et al., Reference Dow, Wang and Whitson2023; Green et al., Reference Green, Toribio-Flórez, Douglas, Brunkow and Sutton2023). These findings exemplify that social groups —in this case, defined by specific political attitudes and identity— might differ in the normative evaluation of the spread conspiracy theories, considering that conspiracy narratives can become a means to enhance the group’s image and status (Marie & Petersen, Reference Marie and Petersen2022; Robertson et al., Reference Robertson, Pretus, Rathje, Harris and van Bavel2022). In short, the negative impact that we argue conspiracy beliefs might have on interpersonal relationships could further depend on the normative evaluation people have of the spread of these beliefs.