Why Do People Spread Conspiracy Theories?
This post is part one of a two-part series.
Did the United States government fake the moon landing in a Hollywood studio? Was the COVID-19 pandemic just a hoax and a ploy for some secretive group’s nefarious goals? Conspiracy theories like these have run rampant over the years. Scientists have directed considerable scrutiny in their direction to understand their characteristics, why people find them compelling, and how they can harm society.
But why do people spread conspiracy theories in the first place? While researchers have examined many dimensions of this baffling phenomenon, relatively little of that effort has been directed at trying to understand what makes people want to share them with others. Similarly, there has been only a small amount of research that considers what these conspiracy spreaders actually get out of sharing these claims as well.
In a recent article published in the British Journal of Social Psychology, a group of researchers have taken steps to shed some light on these important issues (Cao, Van Prooijen, & Van Vugt, 2025). For some people, the term “conspiracy theorist” can have a negative connotation (Lantian et al., 2018). It might call to mind images of gullible, tin-hat sporting social outcasts. However, many other people, including “politicians, online influencers and anti-vaccination proponents,” have deployed conspiracy theories frequently and with great effect on their audiences (Cao, van Prooijen, & van Vugt, 2025: 2). Examples like these suggest that individuals can actually benefit from spreading these outlandish claims. This could, of course, demonstrate a direct connection to why they would choose to spread them at all.
The Evolution of Conspiracy Spreaders
To make sense of how people might benefit from spreading conspiracy theories, the researchers drew on the “Adaptive Conspiracism Hypothesis” (Van Prooijen and Van Vugt, 2018). This proposes that there is an innate human drive to spread conspiracy theory claims. This tendency would have evolved over time due to the prevalence of intergroup conflict across human history.
Being ever suspicious of members of other groups and vigilant of possible threats from these could be beneficial to a group’s survival. It makes them more responsive to real threats and less likely to be surprised by an enemy. Of course, it would also increase the dangers of false positives: of spotting a threat where there isn’t one. However, overactive vigilance would be much less problematic to the group’s survival than a tendency to miss warning signs. Conspiracy theories would provide this vigilance, enhance threat perception, and encourage responsive behaviors. They would contribute to the survival of societies in conflict situations at the expense of other groups that are less suspicious.
While this perspective might seem purely hypothetical, there is substantial research showing patterns in the real world that might support it. For example, conspiracy beliefs are especially prevalent among people who are predisposed to intergroup conflict (Swami, 2012). They are linked to unrealistically positive views of one’s in-group (De Zavala, 2011) as well as equally ridiculous negative prejudices of outgroups (Sternisko et al., 2023). They flourish in social environments characterized by high levels of conflict (Hebel-Sela et al., 2022). They also flourish among minority groups in societies that face actual oppression and discrimination from majority groups (Van Prooijen et al., 2018).
In social contexts, conspiracy theorists would be analogous to members of the group who take it upon themselves to sound the alarm. Far from being stigmatized for this, in their capacity as the group’s defenders they could benefit from an increase in esteem and reputation from their fellows. They might even be perceived as strong leaders. Extrapolating from the Adaptive Conspiracism Hypothesis, the authors predicted that these perceptions would be especially likely in places threatened by more competitive conditions or outright conflict between groups.
These are interesting possibilities, but are they true? Part two of this series examines the research findings.
