Fear and Hope in America Topline Insights
We’ve heard a collective desire to more deeply understand the atmosphere of fear we are operating in and identify strategies that move people toward actions that could make the world more fair and just.
Our new syndicated insights series, “Fear and Hope in America,” is our response. We’ll be listening to what Americans have to say about what’s on their minds and in their hearts and sharing our most actionable insights with our subscribers.
In January we’ll field the survey again and build on our common knowledge about top issues like political attitudes, financial wellbeing, and COVID-19 to map and track the shifting shared realities that drive activation for key demographic segments.
Sign up to receive updates on this series and other insights.
Research Goals & Design
By analyzing the responses of 2,000 Americans to a mix of open- and closed-ended questions over time, we’ll be able to track trends in both the country’s emotional atmosphere and the narratives shaping our perceptions. This data was collected October 26-27 2021, and is representative of the American population.
Methodology
An Avalanche Listening Survey combines open and closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions provide rich data sets that allow us to analyze beliefs, values, and emotions related to an issue. Closed-ended questions provide clarity and comparability with existing research. We work with industry leading data collection partners to gather targeted samples of respondents.
Stay up-to-date
Keep reading to get a taste of what we’ve learned so far. Join our newsletter to receive updates on the tracking data, invites to discussions about these findings and to be a part of designing the next round of research.
The first survey in our series gave us the qualitative baseline to begin to deeply understand what we intuitively know — that Americans across the political spectrum are sad, anxious, worried, and distrustful.
6 in 10
Americans report feeling negative emotions most of the time in the past two weeks
3 in 10
Americans report feeling positive emotions in the past two weeks
Negative emotions, especially anxiety and sadness, predominate the emotional landscape across demographic and psychographic segments
Sadness & anxiety dominate across segments.
When asked to describe, in their own words, how they felt, across age, race and other segments the majority of Americans report feeling sad and anxious. (In the past two weeks, what emotion have you felt most often? - Open ended)
Young Americans are especially sad and anxious.
Those 18-39 are most likely to describe feeling sadness, and more than half of them report feeling worried “most or pretty much all of the time.” (In the past two weeks, how often did you feel worried? - Closed ended)
We asked 2000 Americans what they most feared might happen in the year ahead.
To gain rich understanding we asked respondents to describe their fears in their own words.
Here is a selection of some of their actual responses, characteristic of the top themes (economic downturn, COVID resurgence, political instability).
To learn more and to see how these fears track and shift over time, join our mailing list.
Worse economy & higher costs (38%)
“Prices of products and gas go way up where people can’t afford to buy groceries or to put gas in their car to go to work”
- Woman, 65+, Native, Working class
“That runaway inflation will collapse our economy and that many people will not be able pay for food and shelter.”
- Man, 65+, White, Working class
“I'm worried that things aren't going to get better and my business is going to have to shut down. And my family will have even less money than we do now. We already don't have enough money for food and bills.”
- Woman, 30-39, White, Working class
COVID getting worse & its effects (21%)
“I fear that people will go back to acting like everything is normal when it isn't and there will be more COVID”
- Woman, 65+, White, Working class
“I fear so many people will have lasting lifelong mental and physical effects of COVID-19. Which could lead to job loss, family loss, depression.”
- Woman, 65+, White, Working class
“People all around getting COVID and dying is what I fear most!”
- Man, 30-39, Latinx, Working class
“Another wave of Covid will hit and we wont be able to get jobs, keep jobs, prices will keep increasing by the second, gas prices will go up”
- Man, 18-29, Latinx, Middle class
Gov’t and society getting worse (15%)
“People will become more polarized and less tolerant of those with different beliefs than them.”
- Woman, 18-29, White, Upper- class
“Uncontrollable violence and a terrorist attack as a result of the lax border policy and I am also afraid of hyperinflation or worse stagflation - woman, 30-39, latinx”
- Woman, 30-39, Latinx, Working class
“That Biden will continue to walk around dazed and confused and not even attempt to try to fix all of the problems, i.e the economy, inflation, cargo ships stuck in the harbor, the thousands of undocumented people waltzing across our border.”
- Woman, 65+, White, Working class
For most of us, this collective anxiety is about money.
"Economic worries” are the most common fear, cited in open-ended responses by 38%. This is driven by the 3 in 10 Americans concerned about either rising cost of living (19%) or inflation (9%)
38%
say that "Economic worries” are their most common fear in open-ended responses
19%
describe the rising cost of living specifically as their most common fear
9%
reference inflation in their open-ended response
Financially insecure Americans express more fear about the rising cost of living relative to other priorities, compared those with financial security.
Those who are financially insecure are 10 pts more likely to express worry about the economy and cost of living. Within this broad theme, they are more likely to reference the the rising cost of living and job insecurity, but not more likely to cite inflation. (What do you most fear will happen in America in the next year that would make things harder for people like you? - Open ended)
However amidst the anxiety there is also hope.
Middle and working class Americans, people of color, and those ages 30-65 are most likely to report feeling somewhat or very hopeful.
When asked what they’ve heard about recently that gives them hope, 25% of the hopeful segment and 19% of respondents overall describe drawing hope from Covid improving.
To learn more and to see how these fears track and shift over time, join our mailing list.
19% cite Covid themes
“Covid” is a significant driver of anxiety for many (cited by 21%), but covid improving is also a source of hope (cited by 19%)
25% among hopefuls
Nearly a quarter of those who felt very or somewhat hopeful said they drew hope from news related to COVID
*data collected pre-Omicron
The things people hear about Covid are a source of hope for many.
When asked an open-ended follow up questions to explain what made respondents feel either hopeful or not hopeful, the most common themes discussed were covid, the economy and politics. While the things people are hearing about the economy and politics skew towards not feeling hopeful, the things people are hearing about Covid are more likely to cause them to feel somewhat hopeful. (What specifically did you hear in current events that made you feel very/somewhat/a little/not at all hopeful - Open-ended)
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We’ll go back into the field again in January. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up-to-date on these findings and to see how fear and hope is tracking and changing across demographics over time and to contribute to the design of the ongoing tracking.
As we gain more data, we’ll develop actionable insights and recommendations to support deep understanding and effective messaging on some of the most pressing issues facing decision-makers and organizations today.