Conspiracy theories often concern political and milestone social events, mobilizing various explanations or actions. People may hold beliefs about conspiracy explanations, endorse conspiracy theories or exhibit a conspiracy mindset. But also, people are often exposed to conspiracy explanations of major events. In this talk, two studies from different settings (the 2018 bushfire in Attica and the COVID-19 pandemic) will be presented. Results of the first study conducted in the aftermath of the 2018 bushfire in Attica, showed that exposure to conspiracy theories increased non-normative collective action, decreased normative collective action and, surprisingly, increased political engagement. These effects were moderated by primed victimhood and observed in high levels of victimhood. Also, the aforementioned effects were mediated by negative emotions. Results of the second study during the pandemic showed that exposure to political messages about outgroup – and not ingroup - oriented conspiracy theories regarding the management of the pandemic and the origin of the virus increased perceptions of moral leadership and leader identification. This effect was qualified by an interaction with the leadership style. In particular, democratic and not despotic leaders were perceived as moral and people were more likely to identify with democratic and not despotic leaders in the case of outgroup-oriented conspiracy explanations. Overall, these two studies open the discussion about some important issues regarding people’s exposure to conspiracy explanations of major events and how people’s feelings and behaviors are affected, as well as the intergroup component of conspiracy theories.