Many people believe that the world will soon come to an end, and these apocalyptic views shape how we respond to real global threats such as climate change and artificial intelligence. New research published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology These stories reveal that individuals are deciding whether they want to prevent or ignore impending global crises. By mapping the specific characteristics of these apocalyptic beliefs, researchers can predict public responses to the major dangers of our time.
People from different backgrounds have ideas about Revelation. Some expect religious prophecies to unfold, while others predict environmental collapse. To understand these perspectives, researchers need to focus on how humans assess risk.
Risk perception is the psychological study of how people judge the severity of danger. Past research has investigated how individual experiences and community norms influence these judgments. But experts have rarely investigated how deeply held beliefs about humanity’s ultimate fate influence responses to impending crises.
Historically, apocalyptic thinking has been primarily religious, focusing on the supernatural battle between good and evil. Today, these narratives also emerge in secular contexts, with fears about nuclear weapons, ecological collapse, and advanced technology. The nuclear science community has maintained a doomsday clock since the mid-20th century to symbolize the impending global catastrophe.
Matthew I. Billet led the new study as a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Irvine. Billet and his colleagues wanted to understand the psychological structure of these apocalyptic stories.
The researchers found that previous studies have treated doomsday belief as a single concept, focusing primarily on whether people believe the end is near. Billet’s team suspected that these views were more diverse and included multiple psychological aspects. They hypothesized that the specific details of a person’s apocalyptic story might predict that person’s willingness to address global issues.
A one-dimensional approach might assume that anyone who thinks the world is ending will simply give up on the future. The researchers argued that this view is incomplete, noting that historical end-of-life movements have sometimes sparked political revolutions and at other times encouraged passive waiting. They wanted to capture the diversity of human behavior.
Understanding this dynamic is extremely important today. People must work together across cultural divides to address common problems, such as a global pandemic or nuclear conflict. Researchers sought to understand why different communities react with urgency or indifference to the same global risks.
The research team first conducted six pilot studies with university students and the general public in Canada and the United States. These initial tests allowed researchers to develop and validate a new psychological questionnaire. They called this tool the “End of the World Belief Scale.”
This scale measures five different aspects of how people view Revelation. The first aspect is the awareness of intimacy, which asks how quickly the end will come. The second is artificial causation, which asks whether human actions cause destruction.
The third dimension is theological causation, which measures whether people believe that divine or supernatural forces are responsible. The fourth measure is personal control, which measures how much influence individuals feel they have over the end of life. The final dimension is affective valence, which captures whether a person believes that the end of the world will ultimately be a good thing or a bad thing.
After finalizing the size, the researchers began a larger study of 1,409 U.S. adults. This major study was pre-registered, and the scientists publicly documented their hypotheses and analysis plan before collecting data. They assembled a sample belonging to a variety of religions to capture a wide range of perspectives.
This group included Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and non-religious people. Participants completed a belief scale about the end of the world and outlined their personal views. Next, read about one of the five global risk categories defined by the World Economic Forum.
These categories include economic hazards such as supply chain disruptions and environmental threats such as natural disasters. Also addressed were geopolitical risks such as nuclear war, social dangers such as pandemics, and technological issues such as unregulated artificial intelligence. Participants were randomly assigned to focus on only one of these areas.
Participants reported their perception of the severity of the assigned risk and their tolerance for its negative consequences. They also expressed support for extreme action to address this threat. These extreme actions included dedicating large portions of the national budget to the issue and imposing martial law.
Researchers have found that apocalyptic expectations are incredibly common in the United States. Almost one in three participants believed the world would end in their lifetime. Most participants, regardless of their religious background, agreed that humans play a role in the fate of our species.
However, the specific tenor of these beliefs varied widely among different religious groups. Evangelical Protestants and Muslims prized the belief that divine power would bring about the apocalypse. They also tended to view the apocalypse with more positive emotional value, seeing it as a necessary step towards a better state.
Non-religious participants had very low scores on divine connection and emotional valence. They did not expect divine intervention and did not view the end of the world positively. They also felt the end was less imminent than religious groups.
When considering the five dimensions, the researchers found clear patterns in how people respond to global risks. Those who felt that the end was rapidly approaching perceived the global threat as very serious. They also supported extreme actions to address these impending disasters.
Belief in artificial causation also predicted increased risk perception. When people believed that human actions would cause the apocalypse, they were taking modern global threats very seriously. On the other hand, divine causality predicted lower support for extreme preventive action.
“Those who believe that humanity is causing the apocalypse through climate change will react very differently to environmental policies than those who believe that the apocalypse is controlled by divine prophecy,” Billet said in a press release. Those who expected a divinely ordained conclusion were less willing to support measures to prevent it.
Curiously, people who viewed the end of the world in a positive light showed a higher tolerance for risk. They also showed greater support for extreme action to address global threats. The researchers acknowledged that this particular result is puzzling, since viewing the apocalypse in a positive light would seem to lead to complete inaction.
To ensure the results were robust, the scientists controlled for other psychological traits such as neuroticism and general political conservatism. They even looked to see if common conspiracy-theoretic thinking or religious fundamentalism could explain the pattern. Certain aspects of apocalyptic beliefs continued to predict risk responses independently of these other factors.
This study is based on observational survey data. This means researchers cannot prove that apocalyptic views directly cause certain behaviors. The researchers also noted that the sample was limited to the United States and Canada.
Additionally, the religious groups surveyed were limited to Abrahamic traditions and secular individuals. To gain a deeper understanding of human psychology, we need to look beyond these groups. Future research should examine a broader range of world cultures and religious traditions.
For example, researchers could study societies that view time as cyclical rather than linear. We can also look at cultures that widely believe in reincarnation, which may change people’s conceptions of the end. Exploring these alternative cultural frameworks will provide a broader understanding of how humans assess existential threats.
Additional research may also investigate why apocalyptic narratives spread so easily across different societies. Scientists can investigate the specific psychological characteristics that make these ideas so appealing to the human mind. Historical data could also be used to link the rise of end-of-life movements to specific ecological shocks in the past.
Answering these questions could help policymakers bridge cultural gaps as they coordinate public responses to real world emergencies. Today, different worldviews are creating friction that could stall mass vaccination efforts and climate change mitigation. Recognizing the psychological roots of these disagreements is a necessary step in overcoming the great crisis of this century.
The study, “End of the World Beliefs Are Common and Diverse and Predict How People Perceive and Respond to Global Risks,” was authored by Matthew I. Billet, Sindel J.M. White, Azim Sharif, and Ara Norenzayan.
