Why do Americans foresee a grim future for their country? The influences of country well-being, national identity, and news coverage.

Abstract

The present research examines the factors that contribute to a negative bias in how Americans imagine the future of their country. Specifically, we tested the effects of perceived country well-being, national identity (Study 1), and news coverage (Study 2) on Americans' collective future thinking. Study 1 was situated in a cross-cultural context, in which US and Chinese participants listed within 1 min as many exciting or worrying events as they could that might happen in their country's future and reported perceived country well-being and national identity. In Study 2, US participants read positive, negative, or neutral news events happening in their country and then imagined what might happen in their country's near and distant futures. Americans imagined more negative relative to positive events and rated positive events less positively and negative events more negatively than did Chinese, with the cultural differences explained by the lower perceived country well-being among Americans. US participants exposed to negative news showed greater negative bias in their collective future thoughts than those exposed to neutral or positive news, and the effect was explained by the lower perceived country well-being in the negative news condition. These findings underscore the complexity of collective future perceptions and the significance of psychological and societal factors in shaping how people foresee their country's future.