{"id":149,"date":"2026-06-14T21:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T21:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalcrisesproject.net\/?p=149"},"modified":"2026-06-14T21:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T21:23:19","slug":"aware-but-inactive-the-psychology-of-crisis-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalcrisesproject.net\/?p=149","title":{"rendered":"Aware but inactive: the psychology of crisis engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Most people are aware of the major crises facing the world today: climate change, war and conflicts, political instability, social inequality, and many others. Yet awareness alone rarely translates into action. People who recognise the urgency of a threat often do little to address it, and those who do act may struggle to sustain their engagement over time. Understanding why requires looking beyond information and attitudes, and into the psychology of motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Motivational Readiness Theory<\/strong>, developed by Arie Kruglanski and colleagues (2014), offers a compelling framework for understanding the gap between awareness and action. At its core, the theory proposes that the inclination to act depends on two essential ingredients: Want<\/em> \u2014 the strength of one’s desire to address a problem \u2014 and Expectancy<\/em> \u2014 the belief that effective action is actually possible. The theory builds on decades of research in motivational psychology, integrating insights from animal learning models and personality approaches into a general account of why people pursue goals. Its key insight is that motivational readiness is not simply a matter of knowing what needs to be done. It is a function of how much one wants to do it, and how confident one is that doing it will matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, neither component alone is sufficient. A person may care deeply about climate change but feel that individual actions are meaningless in the face of systemic inertia \u2014 high Want, low Expectancy. Conversely, someone who believes that change is achievable may simply not feel personally invested enough to prioritise action \u2014 high Expectancy, low Want. Motivation collapses when either component is absent. The theory also identifies an important asymmetry: Want plays a primary role, in the sense that some degree of readiness can exist even without full confidence in the outcome, but no motivation will emerge in the complete absence of desire. This has practical implications: it suggests that fostering a genuine sense of personal relevance and moral engagement may be a prerequisite for any intervention aimed at increasing public action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What stops people from acting, even when they care? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A scoping review by Kossowska and colleagues (2024), covering literature from 1945 to 2021 across crisis types ranging from natural disasters to pandemics and forced migration, systematically mapped the factors that block helping behavior during crises. Barriers to Want operate primarily at the individual and societal level: ideological worldviews that minimize the perceived severity of a crisis, negative perceptions of those affected, and a diffusion of responsibility that leads people to assume that others will step in. Barriers to Expectancy tend to be more structural \u2014 distrust in institutions, lack of resources, and unclear guidance about what effective action looks like. These barriers rarely work in isolation. In societies where trust in public institutions is low, both components are affected: people doubt the legitimacy of the problem and lose confidence that collective responses can succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a familiar pattern. People may not be indifferent, but they might be stuck. They recognise the problem but question whether their contribution would change anything. Addressing global crises, therefore, requires understanding precisely where this motivational breakdown occurs and why it affects some populations more than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is exactly what our global study sets out to do. By surveying more than 60 countries across ten cultural clusters, we seek to map the levels of Want and Expectancy across diverse cultural, political, and socioeconomic contexts \u2014 and to understand how these vary with factors such as institutional trust, media environments, prior exposure to crises, and cultural orientations toward individual versus collective action. The goal is not only to describe patterns of engagement and disengagement, but to identify the specific leverage points where targeted interventions could make a meaningful difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n