July marked the second full month of coordinated data collection for the Behavioural Atlas. While the number of responses remains small, the early signals are already showing why it matters to examine feelings about the future together with people’s perceived ability to shape what happens next.
July in numbers
During July, the Futures We Feel project received:
- 5 survey responses from Turkey, Canada, the United Kingdom, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Australia, representing four of the Atlas’s seven global zones.
- 1 behavioural signal submitted directly to the Atlas.
- A tie between Curiosity and Uncertainty as the most commonly reported feelings, with two responses each, followed by Energy with one response.
- A wide range of perceived agency, extending from “Very able” to “Not very able.” Most respondents placed themselves in the moderate “Somewhat able” category.
The dataset is still emerging, and no broad conclusions should yet be drawn from these numbers. However, even a small number of responses can reveal different ways in which people relate to the future.
Some respondents feel ready to explore and act. Others are moving forward without a clear direction or feel constrained in their capacity to influence what happens. So, the responses so far make the diversity of how we address and access futures thinking more visible.
Introducing the Feeling × Agency states
One of the most important developments in July was the introduction of named Feeling × Agency states.
The Behavioural Atlas does not treat emotion and perceived capacity as unrelated variables. Instead, it examines their intersection.
Feeling hopeful, curious, anxious, energised, uncertain, fearful, ambivalent, or resigned tells us something about how the future is being experienced. Yet the same feeling can lead to very different behavioural conditions depending on whether someone feels able to act.
Curiosity combined with strong agency, for example, may support experimentation and active learning. Curiosity combined with limited agency may remain observational or dependent on supportive conditions.
The framework therefore crosses each respondent’s primary feeling with their self-reported level of agency:
Very able → Somewhat able → Not sure → Not very able → Not at all able
The eight primary feelings and five levels of agency produce 40 named Feeling × Agency states. Each state includes a plain-language description and a suggested intervention that facilitators, organisations, educators, policymakers, or community leaders may use when designing engagement and participation.
The intention is not to place people into permanent psychological categories. The states describe a position in a particular moment and context. They help make visible the different conditions from which people encounter uncertainty, imagine possibilities, and decide whether action feels realistic.
The states observed in July
Five different Feeling × Agency states appeared among July’s respondents.
Self-directed exploration
Curious + Very able
The person is actively seeking information, experimenting, and building their own understanding. Curiosity is accompanied by a strong sense of capacity and freedom to act.
Supported exploration
Curious + Somewhat able
The person is open to learning and discovery but may rely on supportive networks, resources, guidance, or enabling conditions to move forward.
Mobilising energy
Energised + Somewhat able
There is motivation and momentum, but the person may still be developing the capacity, alliances, or resources needed to turn that energy into sustained action.
Orientation-seeking
Uncertain + Not sure
The person recognises that change is happening but does not yet have a clear direction. The immediate need may not be action planning, but sensemaking, orientation, and the exploration of possible pathways.
Waiting under strain
Uncertain + Not very able
Uncertainty is combined with a low sense of influence. The person may be waiting for decisions, information, resources, or circumstances beyond their control while carrying emotional or practical pressure.
Even at this early stage, the spread is meaningful. July’s responses extend from high-agency curiosity to uncertainty accompanied by limited capacity.
This reinforces one of the project’s central propositions:
How the future feels cannot be understood separately from how able someone feels to shape it.
A future may appear open and full of possibility to one person while feeling confusing, inaccessible, or externally controlled to another. Looking only at emotion risks overlooking the practical and structural conditions that shape behaviour. Looking only at agency risks overlooking the emotional realities through which those conditions are interpreted.
Country profiles bring context to the map
July also saw the introduction of richer country intelligence profiles within the Behavioural Atlas.
Visitors can click on an amber flag marker to explore contextual information associated with a country, including:
- Hofstede cultural dimensions
- GDP and population data (mostly taken from the CIA World Factbook, which we know has stopped updating this spring; we will find a substitute data source during the autumn)
- Historical context
- Major national news outlets
Each profile is reviewed and verified by the Institute of Behavioural Futures Editorial Team before publication. These profiles add a contextual layer to the lived emotional data. They allow responses and behavioural signals to be considered alongside some of the cultural, economic, historical, and informational conditions in which they emerge.
The profiles are not intended to explain or predict how an individual from a particular country will feel. Countries contain enormous internal diversity, and no national indicator can represent the full lived experience of a population.
Instead, the profiles offer orientation. They help Atlas users ask better questions about the wider systems surrounding each signal:
What conditions may be shaping people’s sense of possibility?
What sources of stability, pressure, trust, or uncertainty are present?
Which structural realities may support or constrain agency?
How might cultural expectations influence the ways people describe the future?
By combining contextual intelligence with lived emotional responses, the Atlas aims to avoid presenting feelings as isolated individual experiences. Feelings about the future are also shaped by institutions, relationships, social narratives, economic conditions, political developments, and access to resources.
What comes next
With the Feeling × Agency framework now live and the country profiles providing a richer contextual layer, the focus in August will be on expanding the respondent base and beginning to explore comparisons across global zones.
The current dataset is too small for representative conclusions, but it is large enough to begin testing the framework, identifying contrasting states, and refining the questions that guide the project. Every new response adds another point to the map and another state to the matrix. Over time, these fragments may help us build a more nuanced picture of how people experience emerging futures — not only what they expect to happen, but whether they feel prepared, supported, uncertain, energised, or able to influence what comes next.
You can contribute by taking the survey, submitting a behavioural signal, or browsing the Behavioural Atlas as the picture develops in real time https://www.behaviouralatlas.org
Furthermore, the Atlas to Action Facilitator Cards are in the works. Keep tuned for more information!
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