In recent years, global crises have increasingly come to define the times we live in. These big challenges, ranging from climate change and political instability to frequent mass shootings, can contribute to a pervasive sense that the future is doomed.
Emergent evidence suggests that many Americans have adopted future outlooks that are not just pessimistic, but apocalyptic. In a 2022 PEW Research study, 39% of respondents believed that humanity is “living in the end times.”
Understanding the Apocalyptic Mindset
The idea of an “apocalyptic mindset” refers to the belief that America’s future is bleak and uncontrollable.
The concepts of the “end times” and the apocalypse have roots in Christianity but also figure in secular narratives about the future. Political scientist Erik Bleich and classics scholar Christopher Star show that over the past four decades, the news media frequently framed secular threats like nuclear war, climate change, disease, and artificial intelligence in apocalyptic terms.
In tumultuous times, people have historically turned to apocalyptic narratives to make sense of and give meaning to negative events. Reflecting the media’s bleak coverage of contemporary crises, the public may interpret today’s hazards as signs of greater catastrophe on the horizon.
What happens when people think so negatively about the future?
Research indicates that people who are pessimistic about their personal futures are less politically engaged. However, research on the political impacts of pessimism about society’s future is scarce.
Measuring future pessimism
To investigate how broad societal pessimism affects political behavior, I fielded a study of 2,053 Americans in April 2024 on Cloud Research, an online survey platform. First, I developed the apocalyptic mindset scale. The scale includes five items that broadly assess projections about the future state of the world and society’s ability to handle future problems. For instance, the scale asks respondents how bright or dark they think the American future will be and how possible or impossible it will be to overcome America’s future problems.
Overall levels of apocalyptic mindset are nearly normally distributed in the sample. The scale ranges from 0 to 1, with 1 being the most pessimistic. The average in this sample is roughly 0.6 and 56% of the sample score higher than this average on the apocalyptic mindset scale. This result is striking because it shows that extremely pessimistic beliefs about the future are not merely fringe beliefs.
Still, some groups are higher on this scale than others. Those highest in apocalyptic mindset tend to be women and less educated individuals. Non-Christian and irreligious people also tend to be higher on the scale than their Christian counterparts, suggesting that extremely negative visions of the future are not exclusive to Christianity.
There are, however, no differences on the apocalyptic mindset scale by partisan identification. This result helps rule out that the scale is simply capturing political grievances about the current party in power.
Impact on political participation
How does apocalyptic mindset relate to political behavior?
On this survey, I asked about voting and other non-voting forms of political participation. Most respondents reported that they were “very” or “extremely” motivated to vote in the 2024 presidential election. For those highest in apocalyptic mindset, average motivation to vote drops by about 10 percent. While I do not know if participants actually voted in the 2024 election, these results suggest that those high in apocalyptic mindset were less likely to turn out.
Note: Motivation to vote is measured on a five-point scale ranging from 0 “not at all motivated” to 1 “extremely motivated.” Apocalyptic mindset is split into 3 quantiles, where the highest group is the most pessimistic.
This study also included questions about other, non-voting forms of political engagement. I asked participants if within the year, they had or planned to attend rallies, talk to others about voting, donate to a campaign, volunteer for a campaign, or display campaign merchandise like yard signs. I compiled all these activities into a single scale of non-voting participation and tested whether apocalyptic mindset can predict these behaviors.
Like motivation to vote, higher levels of apocalyptic mindset in this study were associated with lower levels of non-voting participation. Though they estimate opposite patterns of engagement, apocalyptic mindset and income have similar levels of predictive strength. Apocalyptic mindset is also a stronger predictor of non-voting participation than some other conventional predictors, like education and age.
The bigger picture
In response to an ever-threatening world, it may be rational to expect the worst for the future. My findings show that extremely negative beliefs about society’s future are prevalent among the American people.
A concerning pattern also emerged in my results: Individuals with an apocalyptic mindset are significantly less motivated to vote and less likely to participate in non-voting political activities.
Yet these kinds of participatory activities could be an important outlet for average citizens to advocate for a better future.
When individuals harbor a bleak outlook and disengage from the very political processes that may alter the future, they risk fostering a self-fulfilling prophecy. The acceptance of bad outcomes as fate diminishes the chances of political solutions to the very crises fueling their pessimism.
Avery Goods is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, studying American Politics and a Converse Miller Fellow in American Political Behavior affiliated with the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research. She is broadly interested in political psychology, political communication, media, and survey design. Her current work focuses on how perceptions of the future shape political behavior. Tevah Platt and Julia Lippman of the Center for Political Studies contributed to the development of this post.
