Name: Among engagement groups, Outsiders tend to have less education, lower incomes than other U.S. adults
Creator: Pew Research Center
Published: 2026-07-16
License: https://www.pewresearch.org/terms-and-conditions/

Pew Knight Initiative

The Pew-Knight Initiative supports new research on how Americans absorb civic information, form beliefs and identities, and engage in their communities.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. Knight Foundation is a social investor committed to supporting informed and engaged communities. Learn more >

About this research

This report from the Pew-Knight Initiative examines how Americans engage in public life across a range of activities, including politics, civic and community involvement, news consumption and religious participation. It analyzes how patterns of engagement, when clustered together, can form distinct groups within the U.S. public. It also explores how these engagement groups differ in their demographics, attitudes and levels of civic knowledge.

The report draws from nationally representative surveys of U.S. adults (refer to “How we did this” below). Many questions in these surveys asked about behaviors in the past 12 months, which for most respondents included the 2024 presidential election. Responses reflect the activities Americans took part in during this specific period. Patterns around political activity in particular may look somewhat different at other points in the political cycle.

Why we did this

People participate in public life in different ways – from voting and volunteering to following the news and taking part in religious or community activities. But these behaviors are often studied separately, making it difficult to see how they come together in people’s day-to-day lives. We conducted this study to provide a more integrated picture of how the public engages across these different domains.

We also used a specially designed survey with the awareness that some surveys can struggle to reach Americans who are less likely to participate in public life – because these same people also may be less likely to participate in surveys.

How we did this

This analysis draws on two Pew Research Center surveys.

The main data source is the Cross‑Sectional Engagement Survey, fielded July 9 to Dec. 5, 2025, among 5,393 adults. People could respond online, on paper or by telephone, and we reached out multiple times to people who didn’t initially respond. Refer to the methodology for details.

We also used data from Wave 179 of the American Trends Panel (ATP), a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults, conducted Sept. 8-14, 2025, among 5,195 respondents via web and phone.

To classify Americans into engagement groups, we did a cluster analysis of the Cross-Sectional Engagement Survey based on 19 measures of participation across the range of activities mentioned above. Respondents in the ATP survey were assigned to these groups based on how similar their patterns of behavior were to those identified in the cross‑sectional survey. We used the ATP survey to examine engagement groups’ levels of civic knowledge and views of politics and news. Refer to “How we measured Americans’ engagement in public life” for details on questionnaire design and data analysis approaches.

Here are the survey questions used for this analysis, the detailed responses and the survey methodology.

How many Americans show up in public life – and in what ways?

These questions have been on people’s minds since even before a global pandemic disrupted social activities for years and technologies like smartphones, social media and artificial intelligence began to change the way humans interact.

Americans’ engagement with others is not one-dimensional, according to a new Pew Research Center study from the Pew-Knight Initiative. We looked across a range of behaviors: political activity, civic involvement, religious attendance and attention to news. What we found was that rather than falling along a single spectrum, U.S. adults sort into four distinct groups that reflect different patterns of participation:

Mobilizers (9% of U.S. adults) are the most active across all the different areas. They volunteer, attend local government meetings, donate to political causes, follow the news closely and attend religious services at high rates. What sets them apart most clearly is their political action: They are by far the most likely to do things like volunteer for campaigns and contact elected officials.
Connectors (28%) are involved in many ways, centering on community life, charitable giving and religious attendance. They vote, participate in groups, attend religious services and donate to nonpolitical causes at high rates, similar to Mobilizers. But they are much less likely to take political action.
Spectators (31%) are much less likely than Mobilizers and Connectors to participate in civic or political activities, but they follow the news at similarly high rates. When they engage with news online, Spectators tend to do so by privately chatting about it or liking posts rather than publicly commenting or posting.
Outsiders (31%) participate at relatively low levels across the activities measured in this study, including following the news. Still, they are not universally disengaged: 41% say they voted in 2024, and 24% attend religious services at least monthly.

Refer to the appendix for the full list of 19 questions that were used to create these groups, as well as how each group answered all of the questions. Read “How we measured Americans’ engagement in public life” for a detailed look at how we conducted this study.

Although political polarization has been a defining fact of American life in the 21st century, none of the four groups is dominated by one political party.

The two most highly engaged groups lean modestly in different directions politically: Mobilizers are slightly more likely to be Democrats (or lean Democratic) and Connectors are a bit more likely to be Republicans or GOP leaners. But it is clear that members of both parties engage – or don’t – in a variety of ways.

Why study this now?

Concerns about whether Americans are retreating from various forms of engagement with society are not new. Declines in religious attendance, civic group memberships and attention to news have been well documented. And questions about how Americans participate have taken on new dimensions after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of countless social activities.

Yet broad claims about whether Americans are “engaged” or “disengaged” – and how this is changing over time – are difficult to assess. Participation in public life takes many forms, from attending a school board meeting in person to sharing a news article online, and it is not easily captured by any single measure. The way people engage also is evolving along with technological changes.

To better capture the full range of how Americans participate, this study looked at several ways Americans engage (or don’t) with the world around them, using a large, one-time national survey. The survey was conducted in late 2025 and was designed to capture the opinions of Americans who engage at different levels, offering respondents the chance to complete the survey on paper, by phone, or online, and making multiple efforts to contact people who didn’t initially respond.

Below, we take a closer look at each of the four groups.

You can also explore more in depth:

Age: How younger and older Americans engage in society differently
Politics: How engagement plays out for both Republicans and Democrats
Attitudes: How engagement is linked with Americans’ feelings about politics, news and the state of the country and their communities
Knowledge: How engagement is linked with civic knowledge

Mobilizers

About one-in-ten U.S. adults (9%) are highly engaged across politics, civic life, news and religion.

Mobilizers stand out for the breadth and frequency of their participation. A large majority (77%) have volunteered in the past 12 months, and 73% have been members of a group, organization or association during this time. Among U.S. adults overall, roughly three-in-ten participate in these activities.

What sets the Mobilizers apart most clearly is their political activity over the past year – especially behaviors that are relatively rare among the broader public. About three-quarters of Mobilizers (74%) say they have displayed a sign, bumper sticker or clothing item for a political cause or candidate. Roughly two‑thirds (65%) say they have contacted an elected representative. And about one-in-five (21%) have volunteered for a political campaign.

Who are Mobilizers?

Demographically, Mobilizers are much more likely than Americans overall to have high levels of education and income. And as mentioned above, Mobilizers are more likely to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party (57%) than the Republican Party (41%).

Mobilizers also include higher shares of both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats than U.S. adults as a whole. And they stand out in their ideological intensity: Republicans in this group are more likely than Republicans in other groups to describe themselves as very conservative, while Democrats are more likely to describe themselves as very liberal.

Refer to the detailed tables for demographic breakdowns of all four engagement groups.

Connectors

As a group, Connectors are about triple the size of the Mobilizers, making up 28% of U.S. adults. They are active in many areas of public life but are less politically involved – and less interested in politics – than Mobilizers.

About two-thirds of Connectors (65%) were members of a group, association or organization in the past year, though they are less likely than Mobilizers to hold leadership roles within those groups. They tend to follow the news (national and local) and reported voting in 2024 at high rates, similar to Mobilizers. But they are less likely to contact elected officials, volunteer for campaigns or display public support for political causes (whether online or not).

Their engagement centers on community life rather than politics. Nine‑in‑ten say they have donated to nonpolitical organizations like charities. Connectors also attend religious services at a similar rate to Mobilizers.

Who are Connectors?

The Connectors resemble the Mobilizers in some ways: They tend to have higher levels of education and income than the general public. They are also older and somewhat more likely to be White. They are made up of slightly more Republicans than Democrats.

Refer to the detailed tables for demographic breakdowns of all four engagement groups.

Spectators

About three-in-ten Americans are Spectators (31%). These are people who follow the news at high rates but largely stay on the sidelines of other civic and political activities.

For example, 84% say they follow national news at least somewhat closely, and three-quarters say they liked or saved an online post about news in the past week. But they are much less likely than Mobilizers or Connectors to vote, volunteer or belong to a group or organization.

Even when Spectators engage with news online, they are much more likely to like a post or privately chat about it than to publicly comment. Many also say they discuss news with others at least a few times a week. But most do not describe themselves as highly interested in politics.

Who are Spectators?

Spectators are by far the youngest group: 28% are under 30 and 64% are under 50. They stand out for their internet use – 56% say they use the internet “almost constantly.” They are also less likely to be White, and more likely to identify as politically moderate compared with Mobilizers and Connectors.

Refer to the detailed tables for demographic breakdowns of all four engagement groups.

Outsiders

About three-in-ten Americans (31%) participate at low levels across the activities measured in this study. Outsiders are less engaged than Americans overall on every kind of measure – from more demanding activities like volunteering and attending meetings to lower-threshold behaviors like voting or following the news. They are also less likely to attend religious services, even though they are no less likely to say they believe in God.

Some Outsiders do participate in these activities – 41% say they voted in 2024, and 24% say they attend religious services in person at least monthly – but this group is clearly the least engaged. Very few take part in political activities like volunteering or advocacy.

While Outsiders are similar to Spectators in their rates of voting and volunteering, they stand out for their much lower level of attention to the news. For example, 41% of Outsiders say they follow national news at least somewhat closely, compared with 84% of Spectators. And just 7% of Outsiders say they have liked or saved a post about the news online in the past week – versus 75% of Spectators.

Who are Outsiders?

Outsiders are similar to the U.S. population as a whole in terms of age and gender. They are fairly evenly split by political party, and about half (48%) describe their political views as moderate. They are distinguished primarily by lower levels of education and income: About half have a high school diploma or less education, and 31% are in lower-income households.

Refer to the detailed tables for demographic breakdowns of all four engagement groups.

CORRECTION (July 17, 2026): In the chart titled “How 4 groups vary by key measures of social and civic engagement,” some y-axes have been rescaled for consistency across the graphic. The figures and findings in this report were not affected.

	Mobilizers	Connectors	Spectators	Outsiders
Say they voted in 2024	87	87	49	41
Contacted an elected official in the past year	65	13	7	3
Volunteered in the past year	77	42	17	13
Made a nonpolitical donation in the past year	83	90	21	21
Attend religious services in person at least monthly	45	43	25	24
Follow national news at least somewhat closely	95	88	84	41

	Rep/Lean Rep	No lean/Refused	Dem/Lean Dem
Mobilizers	41	2	57
Connectors	51	6	43
Spectators	42	8	50
Outsiders	45	15	40

Group	College+	Some college	HS or less
Mobilizers	53	28	19
All U.S. adults	35	28	35
	$100K+	$30K-<$100K	<$30K
Mobilizers	47	36	13
All U.S. adults	31	43	20

	Conservative Republican	Mod/Lib Rep	Mod/Cons Dem	Liberal Democrat	Other
Mobilizers	32	9	22	35	2
All U.S. adults	26	19	25	20	10

Group	Ages 18-29	30-49	50-64	65+
Connectors	10	28	26	35
All U.S. adults	19	34	24	23
	White	Hispanic	Black	Asian*
Connectors	70	11	9	5
All U.S. adults	59	18	11	6
	College+	Some college	HS or less
Connectors	52	27	20
All U.S. adults	35	28	35
	$100K+	$30K-<$100K	<$30K
Connectors	45	42	8
All U.S. adults	31	43	20

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How Americans Are Engaged With News, Politics, Religion and Civic Life