future anxiety
Definition
Future anxiety refers to feelings of pessimism and uncertainty about what lies ahead, encompassing concerns about whether one's future will be worse than the present or the circumstances of prior generations. Research examining UK and Greek adolescents aged 16 to 21 treated it as a psychologically meaningful construct with direct implications for political attitude formation, including support for democratic and authoritarian principles, ideological self-placement, and actively open-minded thinking. Societal crises such as climate change, economic turmoil, and war are identified as external contributors to these feelings, which may in turn shape the cognitive and ideological orientations of young people during a politically formative developmental period. Higher future anxiety was associated with stronger support for democratic principles in the UK sample, though cognitive reappraisal moderated this association, and among young men specifically, future anxiety predicted a shift toward right-conservative ideological self-classification across both countries.
Sources: Borghi et al. (2025)
Related Terms
- adolescence (1 shared article)
- emotion regulation (1 shared article)
- political attitudes (1 shared article)
- ideology (1 shared article)
Applications
Future Anxiety and Cognitive Reappraisal
Cognitive reappraisal, understood as a strategy of constructively reinterpreting emotion-eliciting situations, moderated the association between future anxiety and support for both democratic and authoritarian principles among UK adolescents. For youth low in cognitive reappraisal, future anxiety was positively associated with authoritarianism, whereas this association became negative for those scoring high in the strategy. The implication is that how young people regulate their feelings about the future, not merely the intensity of those feelings, shapes the political attitudes that follow.
Sources: Borghi et al. (2025)
Future Anxiety and Political Participation
In both the UK and Greek samples, future anxiety was associated with higher levels of political participation among adolescents. This finding positions future anxiety as a potential motivator of political action rather than solely a source of disengagement or resignation.
Sources: Borghi et al. (2025)
Future Anxiety and Authoritarian Attitudes
Among young men in both the UK and Greek samples, future anxiety was associated with stronger support for authoritarian principles and a shift toward right-conservative ideological self-classification, associations that were not significant for young women. This gender divergence suggests that the political consequences of future anxiety are not uniform across the adolescent population.
Sources: Borghi et al. (2025)
