Anxious, Apathetic, and Antidemocratic? Future Anxiety and Young People’s Political Attitudes

Background

Converging reports indicate that many young people are anxious about their future. Future anxiety captures a cognitive-emotional orientation toward the future in which pessimism outweighs optimism and anxiety is stronger than hope. At the same time, there are indications that some young people are less supportive of democracy and disengaged with politics. Yet we know surprisingly little about how future anxiety relates to young people’s political views, presenting a critical research gap in times of democratic deconsolidation. Across two pre-registered studies with UK youth, we provide the first empirical insights into this question.

Method

In Study 1, we used data from N = 988 UK adolescents aged 16 to 21, representative in gender, region, and education. Participants completed validated measures of future anxiety, political ideology, support for authoritarian and democratic principles, and willingness to participate in politics. In Study 2, we recruited N = 1895 young people aged 16 to 26 and randomly assigned them to one of three experimental conditions. Participants viewed a social media post about the cost-of-living crisis framed to either increase future anxiety, reduce it by emphasising hope, or present the same information without emotional framing. They then completed measures of democratic support and political engagement, such as deciding to view an optional survey page on how to get more democratically involved.

Results

Study 1 indicated moderate to high levels of future anxiety in our sample. Higher future anxiety was not credibly associated with more right-wing political ideology or authoritarian support across young women and men. Instead, those higher in future anxiety showed stronger support for democratic principles (β = .29, 95% CI [.23, .35]) and greater willingness to participate in politics. However, follow-up analyses revealed an important gender difference. Among young men, future anxiety was associated with more right-conservative ideology and authoritarian preferences.

In Study 2, we put the causality of these associations to a test. Our manipulations successfully shifted future anxiety, and this had downstream effects on political outcomes. Participants in the anxiety condition showed 2.5 percentage points lower democratic support than those in the hope condition (β = −0.025, 95% CI [−0.043, −0.008]). While we did not find credible differences in self-reported willingness to participate in politics (e.g., protesting), participants in the hope condition were about 7 percentage points more likely to view information on how to get more democratically involved (β = 0.069, 95% CI [0.017, 0.120]).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that future anxiety is an important psychological underpinning of young people’s political views, with more research needed to understand its causal role. While future anxiety was correlated with higher democratic support, our experimental findings suggest that reducing this anxiety and increasing hope may make young people even more supportive of and interested in democratic engagement. These insights are of high relevance in times of multiple crises. Firstly, because young people are often the ones most affected by these crises. Second and perhaps more importantly, because today’s younger generations have the potential to defend democratic values in the future.