Societal pessimism in Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands

Abstract

This paper starts out with a theoretical argument, based on panel data, that public mood in general and societal pessimism in particular should be measured from an explicitly temporal perspective. Next, based on a survey among more than 200 Japanese students and a wide array of existing (longitudinal) data sources in three different languages and covering several decades it is shown that public mood in three quite different countries - first and foremost Japan, but also the United States and The Netherlands - is quite apprehensive. In all these three countries societal pessimism can be observed during the past quarter century. Finally, utilizing a MDSD approach a few possible tentative explanations for this observed pessimism are sought.