The Hidden Circuitry of the Four Turnings

The Neuroeconomic Cycle Driving Empathy, Fear, and the Shape of History

What if history doesn’t just repeat, but pulses—rising and falling in ways we rarely notice until it’s too late?

This article started as a simple list of events that shaped the world we live in. But as I followed the threads, I found something deeper—a hidden feedback loop connecting economic stress, brain chemistry, ideological shifts, and the cycles of history described by Strauss and Howe’s “Four Turnings.”

The Hidden Circuitry of the Four Turnings explores that loop, how it might explain the rhythm of fear and hope that shapes our society, and whether we might soften the impact of the next wave before it crashes.

1. The Hidden Circuitry of the Four Turnings

What if history doesn’t just repeat—it pulses?

For decades, the Strauss–Howe generational theory has described an 80-year cycle of American history, divided into four “Turnings”: a High, an Awakening, an Unraveling, and a Crisis. In this view, history isn’t linear, but rhythmic—an echoing pattern of social moods rising and falling through generations. But while the Turnings map the shape of history, they don’t explain why the cycle
occurs. What drives it? What gives it force, urgency, emotion?

What if the answer lies inside us?

Emerging research in neuroscience and psychology suggests that mass behavior—ideological rigidity, empathy, rebellion, conformity—may be influenced by more than just events. Our economic conditions influence our biology, especially brain chemistry like dopamine, which governs motivation, fear, openness, and trust. When the economy crashes, dopamine drops. When hope rises, so does flexibility. Fear tightens us. Safety relaxes us. And these chemical shifts ripple outward into politics, crime, culture, and collective identity.

This article explores a new idea: that the Four Turnings may be underpinned by a multi-level feedback loop connecting economics, brain chemistry, ideology, leadership, and institutions. A system that moves not just across time, but through us.

If this circuitry exists, can we see the warning signs as we approach another breaking point? And if we can’t stop the cycle entirely, could we at least soften its hardest turns?

2. A Brief Tour of the Four Turnings

History doesn’t move in straight lines—it moves in seasons.

According to Strauss and Howe, American history cycles through a repeating pattern roughly every 80 to 100 years, called a saeculum. Each saeculum is divided into four Turnings, each lasting about 20–25 years, reflecting a generational mood swing that reshapes society.

These are the Four Turnings:

1. The High – A time of collective confidence and institutional strength, following a major crisis. Post–WWII America (1946–1964) is the textbook High: the GI Bill, infrastructure, rising middle class, strong labor unions, and a shared belief in the American Dream.
2. The Awakening – As prosperity grows stale, the next generation pushes back. This is a time of spiritual upheaval and questioning of established norms. Think of the 1960s and 1970s: civil rights, anti-war protests, feminism, environmentalism, the counterculture.
3. The Unraveling – Institutions weaken. Cynicism rises. Trust erodes. Individualism peaks while the social fabric frays. The 1980s–2000s saw deregulation, wealth inequality, and the rise of culture wars.
4. The Crisis – The unraveling reaches a breaking point. Institutions fail. Conflict surges. The 2008 financial crash, climate emergencies, and political extremism may mark our current era.

Where we go next depends on how this Crisis resolves.

3. The Chemistry of Fear and Hope

Dopamine is often called the “reward chemical,” but it’s more accurate to say it governs how motivated we feel—how much we care, how much we want something, and how open we are to risk and new experiences.

When dopamine levels are high, people feel optimistic, flexible, and energized. They explore. They trust more easily. They can imagine a better future and work toward it. When dopamine is low, the opposite happens: fear rises. People become rigid, suspicious, protective. They cling to certainty and close ranks. Creativity and empathy decline.

This isn’t just personal. When large numbers of people experience stress and uncertainty at the same time, their collective dopamine tone can shift. You see it in rising crime, addiction, conspiracy theories, and authoritarian movements. You also see it in declining trust, political polarization, and social fragmentation.

Dopamine isn’t just a brain chemical—it’s a social weathervane.

4. Layer One: The Economic Pulse of Society

Every cycle needs a rhythm. For civilizations, that rhythm is often economic.

When the economy is growing—when wages rise, jobs feel secure, and basic needs are met—people feel safe enough to plan for the future. They invest in their communities. They raise families with confidence. They trust institutions, because those institutions seem to be working.

But when the economy falters, everything changes. Insecurity takes root. Jobs vanish or feel precarious. Prices rise, savings shrink, futures blur. Economic stress is more than numbers on a spreadsheet—it’s psychological destabilization at scale.

This isn’t abstract. In the post–World War II era, America experienced a historic boom: veterans returned to good jobs, bought homes, and built a thriving middle class. It was a time of rising expectations, union strength, and broad-based opportunity.

But beginning in the 1970s and accelerating through the ’80s and ’90s, things began to shift. Deregulation, outsourcing, and automation hollowed out the working class. Real wages stagnated. Entire towns lost their economic purpose. By the time the 2008 financial crash hit, millions were already teetering on the edge.

These economic shocks didn’t just reshape the balance sheets—they reshaped the mood of the nation. And that mood is where the cycle takes its next turn.

5. Layer Two: Dopamine and the Emotional Climate

When economic conditions change, our brain chemistry responds.

Dopamine, the chemical that governs motivation, risk tolerance, and reward-seeking behavior, rises when life feels full of opportunity. In good times, dopamine flows more freely—we feel curious, generous, forward-looking. It becomes easier to trust others, to imagine a better future, to support institutions and social progress.

But when economic stress takes over, dopamine begins to drop.

Scarcity, fear, and uncertainty suppress the reward system. A chronically stressed society isn’t just unhappy—it’s chemically altered. Low dopamine means:

• People become more rigid and resistant to change.
• Empathy declines; tribalism increases.
• Short-term survival thinking replaces long-term planning.
• Addictions rise—not just to substances, but to ideological certainty, conspiracy, and outrage.

It’s no coincidence that the opioid crisis exploded alongside the economic decline of many working-class towns. Or that as wealth inequality rose, so did authoritarian sentiment. The brain, under siege, becomes desperate for meaning and control. That desperation becomes fuel for the next stage of the cycle: ideological behavior.

6. Layer Three: Ideology in a Chemical Mirror

Ideology doesn’t float in a vacuum—it rises from how people feel.

When dopamine is high, people tend to be more open: to new ideas, unfamiliar people, uncertain futures. Liberalism, in the broadest sense—not just politically, but psychologically—flourishes in these times. So does empathy. People believe that problems can be solved, systems can be reformed, and strangers can be trusted.

But when dopamine drops, the ideological climate hardens.

A society under chronic stress becomes less flexible. People crave certainty, clarity, and strong in-group identities. Fear makes nuance intolerable. Complexity feels like a threat. In these conditions, rigid ideologies gain traction—not just on the right, but across the spectrum. What matters is not left vs. right, but open vs. closed.

You can see this shift across recent history:

• In the 1960s, economic abundance fueled expansive liberal movements—from civil rights to environmentalism to space exploration.
• By the 1980s and 1990s, as economic anxiety grew, political rhetoric turned toward punishment, deregulation, and moral panic.
• After 2008, the ideological temperature spiked. Populist movements surged. Trust collapsed. Conspiracy theories flourished, not because people were ignorant, but because they were desperate for control.

Ideology becomes the symptom of a society’s dopamine tone. And once that shift happens, the leaders we choose—and the decisions they make—begin to reflect that chemical mood.

7. Layer Four: Policy, Power, and the Mood of the Moment

We like to think of leaders as shapers of history—but more often, they are expressions of it.

Political leaders don’t rise in a vacuum. They reflect the emotional climate of their time, channeling the public’s mood—sometimes skillfully, sometimes manipulatively. And because they hold power, their decisions can amplify that mood, for better or worse.

In times of high dopamine and economic optimism, we tend to elect builders: leaders who invest in infrastructure, expand rights, and try to lift everyone. Think Roosevelt after the Great Depression. Eisenhower during the postwar boom. Even Obama, whose message of hope resonated after the 2008 crash—until the system proved more resistant than expected.

But in low-trust, low-dopamine eras, we often reach for breakers: leaders who promise control, scapegoats, or revenge. They don’t rise because they’re persuasive. They rise because they mirror the desperation of a population that feels betrayed and unseen.

These leaders often succeed not despite their cruelty, but because of it. Societies under stress are drawn to figures who reject empathy, who treat negotiation as weakness, and who seem willing to “do what it takes” without flinching. The strongest followers don’t just tolerate this behavior—they celebrate it. Cruelty becomes a performance of strength, and the leader’s lack of empathy is mistaken for clarity or courage. History has seen this before, from industrial tycoons to political demagogues. It is not new—but it is dangerous, because what looks like control often accelerates collapse.

Their policies tend to follow suit:

• Public goods are gutted instead of invested in.
• Institutions are attacked rather than strengthened.
• Policy becomes reactive, tribal, and theatrical—feeding the crisis instead of resolving it

It’s tempting to blame individuals, but the deeper truth is systemic. As Einstein himself said, “the world won’t be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch and do nothing.” And ironically, even Einstein himself may not have become Einstein without the world being ready for someone like him. If it hadn’t been him in 1905, it would’ve been someone else by 1915. Societies produce the leaders they are primed to need—scientists, reformers, or demagogues—based on the emotional and material conditions already in place.

And when those leaders make decisions under stress, those decisions reshape not just laws—but trust. That’s when institutions begin to bend—or break.

8. Layer Five: Institutions—The Breakers or Buffers of the Cycle

Institutions are supposed to steady the ship. At their best, they channel society’s energy into productive action: education systems that prepare the next generation, public health that cushions crisis, journalism that informs, courts that hold power accountable.

But institutions don’t run on autopilot. They depend on trust, on leadership, on participation. When economic pressure and ideological rigidity rise—when dopamine falls and fear takes hold—institutions begin to bend. And under enough pressure, they break.

Sometimes that pressure is internal: underfunding, corruption, or partisan rot. Sometimes it’s external: leaders deliberately undermining public trust for political gain. Often, it’s both.

What matters is this: as institutions weaken, they stop moderating the cycle and start amplifying it

• A justice system that’s seen as rigged encourages vigilante thinking.
• A press that chases clicks over clarity deepens outrage and confusion.
• A government that fails to respond to crisis erodes the belief that anyone is steering the ship.

Weak institutions make low-trust environments feel permanent—and that drags the cycle further down. But strong institutions can absorb shock, preserve empathy, and dampen the volatility that otherwise defines Crisis periods.

They can’t prevent the wave—but they can stop it from crashing as hard.

9. Closing the Loop: The Feedback Cycle of History

We’ve followed five layers—from economic shocks to brain chemistry, ideology, leadership, and institutional strength. On their own, each is powerful. But together, they form a closed feedback loop, where each part reinforces the next.

It works like this:

1. Economic & Social Conditions rise or fall.
2. These shifts influence dopamine tone at the population level—changing how people feel, think, and relate.
3. That mood drives collective ideological behavior: openness vs. rigidity, trust vs. fear.
4. Those behaviors influence the leaders we elevate and the policies they choose.
5. Those decisions either strengthen or weaken our institutions, which then shape the next round of economic outcomes

And back we go.

This is not just a cycle—it’s a system. A multi-level loop. A kind of circuitry that operates beneath the surface of Strauss and Howe’s Four Turnings.

Mapping the Loop onto the Turnings:

• High (Post-Crisis Rebuilding): Economic optimism → high dopamine → social trust and empathy →institution building → liberal openness → long-term planning.
• Awakening (Ideological Upheaval): Sustained abundance → dopamine shifts from security to self-expression → generational rebellion → weakened institutions via disillusionment or neglect.
• Unraveling (Fragmentation): Inequality rises → dopamine stratifies (high for elites, low for most)→ polarization, cynicism, and addiction → populist leaders and punitive policy → institutional decay.
• Crisis (Collapse and Realignment): Widespread stress and fear → dopamine bottoms out →tribalism, rigidity, scapegoating → institutions fail when needed most → a new economic system must emerge.

This isn’t fate. It’s momentum. The loop can spin smoothly—or spiral violently—depending on how we manage each layer.

10. Can We Soften the Cycle?

We can’t escape the wave. But maybe we can smooth it.

The generational Turnings described by Strauss and Howe aren’t laws of nature—but they do describe something deeply human. Our societies, like our bodies, go through phases of expansion and contraction, confidence and doubt. And if the model in this article is right—if our economic systems influence our brain chemistry, which in turn shapes our politics and institutions—then the cycle isn’t just historical. It’s biological. It’s emotional.

That doesn’t make it hopeless. It makes it knowable.

We don’t need to stop the cycle to make progress. What we need is to find the points of leverage—places where a small intervention could change the tone of a generation.

Some possibilities:

• Economic buffering: Policies that reduce chronic insecurity—like universal healthcare, housing stability, or basic income—can prevent mass dopamine collapse.
• Empathy as infrastructure: Treat social trust as a public good, not a luxury. Fund schools that teach perspective-taking. Promote restorative justice over retribution.
• Strengthen institutions early: Don’t wait for the Crisis to hit. Rebuild transparency, accountability, and civic trust before things break.
• Recognize the midpoints: Every Turning has a moment where the mood shifts. If we can see those coming, we might steer—not the wave itself, but how hard it crashes

If history moves in pulses of fear and hope, then the task isn’t to flatten the line—it’s to preserve empathy through the troughs, and extend wisdom through the peaks.

The future will always bring another Turning. The question is: what kind of people will be standing when it comes?

11. References & Influences

• Strauss, William & Howe, Neil. The Fourth Turning
• Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind
• Zmigrod, Leor. “The Cognitive Underpinnings of Ideological Thinking.”
• Sapolsky, Robert. Behave and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
• Turchin, Peter. Ages of Discord and Ultrasociety
• Lakoff, George. Moral Politics (selected ideas)
• Personal analysis by Gary Kephart (2024–2025)