Perceived Agency, Anticipatory Anxiety, and Motivated Reasoning about Environmental Threats (AGEN)

Holder

Davide Sansone (Sciences Po, Département d'Economie)

Description

Individuals systematically bias their beliefs about the likelihood of future threats downward, for example underreporting the probability of a bad outcome, to reduce anticipatory anxiety. This motivated belief distortion is a key barrier, among other things, to climate action. This project tests whether perceived agency, i.e. the possibility of acting to reduce the threat, moderates this wishful thinking bias. Using an original theoretical model and a preregistered online experiment, we vary the cost of a real-effort task that eliminates a financial loss; beliefs about the risk are elicited incentive-compatibly. The central prediction is that high effort costs favour belief denial, while low effort costs improve belief accuracy. A collective extension tests whether diluted individual responsibility (when one's action is not pivotal) amplifies denial, a dynamic at the heart of barriers to climate collective action. The design identifies when anticipatory anxiety leads to action as a coping strategy, rather than denial. Results will directly inform environmental policy design: interventions that preserve individuals' sense of agency may reduce motivated denial of environmental threats and sustain pro-environmental behaviour.