Use this magic bullet to shoot yourself in the foot

I'll bring to your attention footnote 1, where author links to an article seemingly arguing against the 'expanding circle'. I haven't read such article nor do I know anything about circles, but I thought you'd like to know it is there.

Great article! You can tell the author is frustrated while the tone being quite considering.

I found the part on self-handicapping a bit strange, though. Is that idea real, measurable psychology, or is it more of an interpretation of behavior? I find it hard to conceive how to properly measure such "unconscious intentions". Maybe I misunderstood the author and they only meant it as an analogy.

I feel like there's more to explore on understanding why people think the world is so doomed. My impression is that those convictions are formed from being blasted with news, and not by looking at data. Are there papers out about this?

Another perspective I'd find interesting to learn about is why is it that people that believe problems are solvable do/do not take action themselves. Could the reason behind the decisions be incredibly multifaceted, or could it correlate strongly with, say, personality traits and age?

As I wrote the paragraph above, I came to realize I don't how to create a study that is able to measure a causation/correlation that only exist when two variables interact. Like when a correlation with X only exists if variables A and B are "high" at the same time, not independently. My first thought is that it's a really difficult analysis to make because there are so many possible combinations and thus many opportunities for things to correlate by chance. I'd be happy to hear if you know how to do analysis as such.