Day 1
2 June, 2022
03:00 pm, Pacific Time
WELCOME
03:15 pm
SeSSION 1
Julian Fernando, Yoshihisa Kashima, Madeline Judge, Léan O’Brien
Utopian thinking: The social psychology of contemplating an ideal society
Utopian thinking is an emerging area of research in social psychology that can help us understand attitudes about, and motivation for, social change. In this presentation I will present an overview of the perspective that has informed my colleagues and my recent research in this area. This will include consideration of what utopian thinking is/consists of, and three facets of utopian thinking informed by previous theoretical perspectives: 1) function (i.e., how utopian thinking affects motivation); 2) content (i.e., what people think about when they imagine an ideal for society); and 3) utopianism (i.e., individual differences in the tendency to engage in utopian thinking). I will also discuss our research findings integrating utopian thinking with existing social psychological constructs such as self-regulation, mental contrasting and collective action.
Morgana Lizzio-Wilson, Michael Wenzel, & Emma F. Thomas
All In Time: How Emotions Tied to the Past, Present, and Future Shape Collective Action
Experiencing anger about the current status quo (a negative present) motivates collective action. But how might other temporal comparisons (e.g., thinking about a positive future or positive past) and the unique emotions they elicit influence people’s willingness to act? Although action is often underpinned by anger about the present, no work has systematically examined whether other temporal comparisons influence action via different affective appraisals (e.g., a hopeful vision of how things could be in the future, nostalgia for how things were in the past). In the present research, we test whether these different time referents elicit unique emotions that differentially motivate action. Across two studies (N = 1347), participants were asked to think about and describe a negative, positive, or neutral past, present, or future regarding plastic pollution. They then completed measures assessing emotions (e.g., hope, anger), group consciousness (a latent variable comprising identification, group efficacy, moral convictions, and (lower) system justification), and action intentions. Results revealed countervailing effects. Thinking about a positive (vs negative or neutral) future enhanced hope, which predicted stronger action intentions via group consciousness. However, thinking about a positive (vs negative or neutral) timepoint simultaneously decreased anger, which predicted lower action intentions via diminished group consciousness. Thus, alternative temporal comparisons (particularly those involving a positive future) influence action. However, this influence is not wholly positive: while imaging an ideal future can motivate action to actualize this reality, it also demotivates action by attenuating anger and a desire to agitate for change.
Jasmin Jossin, Ida-Maria Sommerfeldt & Myriel Milicevic
The End of Human Dominance: an Xtopian Intervention on a Symbiotic Future
Xtopias are interventions that facilitate people’s mental and emotional access to different possible futures. They consist of extreme ideas with utopian, dystopian and ambivalent aspects, which are combined with a suitable format to address and actively involve specific target groups. The aim of Xtopian interventions is to engage people in the support of societal transformations to a more sustainable future.
4:15 pm
BREAK and breakout rooms with speakers
4:30 pm
5:00 pm
SESSION 2
Emma Thomas, Michael Wenzel, Morgana Lizzio-Wilson, Linda Skitka, Danny Osborne
“The Times They Are A’Changin’”: How experiencing a discontinuous present and imagining the future shape intention to engage in progressive versus reactionary forms of collective action
We are living in times of dramatic, rapid and widespread change. How do discontinuous changes in the present shape how people’s emotions about, and intentions to act to change, the future? In this research we integrate the insights from research on the psychology of dramatic social change, collective action and the human capacity to imagine the future (prospection). We suggest that action to bring about more just and equal societies (progressive collective action), or conversely, action to support more reactionary measures (reactionary collective action) will depend on: i) the experiences of the social changes induced by the change; ii) how people imagine the future (positively, utopian v negatively, dystopian) and, accordingly iii) the emotions that they experience about the present day and the future (hopes, fears, anger, compassion, gratitude). This research reports cross-sectional and longitudinal data collected in the context of wildfire disasters (Study 1; in Australia N = 871, and the United States N = 465) and the COVID-19 Pandemic (Study 2; in Australia, N = 519, and the United States, N = 510). Person-centred longitudinal structural equation modelling is used. The analyses identify when progressive and conservative forms of collective action are shaped by how people imagine the future, which aspects of that future matter, and address the role of the (positive/negative) emotions that prospection inspires. Perceptions and emotions about the past, present and future shape people’s intentions to act to change that future, in ways that can promote or undermine progressive societal change.
Annika Lutz, Caroline M. L. Mackay, Michael T. Schmitt, Joshua D. Wright, Jonathan Mendel
Thinking about a more sustainable future encourages environmental activism
Prior work suggests that people may become more motivated toward environmental activism if they can imagine what a sustainable world might look like; the ability to imagine such a world – environmental cognitive alternatives (ECA) – correlates with identification as an environmental activist and environmental activist intentions (Wright et al., 2020). To date, we know of no causal tests of the relationship between ECA and environmental activism. We address this gap in two experimental studies.In Study 1 (N = 1174 US mTurk participants) we compared 3 different experimental conditions designed to manipulate ECA with a control condition. One of the ECA conditions – a task where participants were asked to think and write about a sustainable world (writing condition) – led to higher measured ECA, higher identification with environmental activists, and higher environmental activist intentions compared to the control condition. Study 2 (N = 1144 US mTurk participants) compared only the control condition and the writing condition; ECA increased identification with environmental activists, but not activist intentions. In both studies, measured ECA mediated an effect of condition on identification with environmental activists and on activism intentions. To our knowledge, these studies provide the first causal evidence that ECA promotes activist ID and activist intentions.
Karen Hamann, Larissa Legler
How to envision an ecological future? An experimental study on the effectiveness of presented vs. self-generated visions
In times of climate change, biodiversity loss, and further crises, it is crucial for people to know where they want to be heading towards. Societal visions might provide the opportunity to face these crises and regain a sense of agency. An angle of environmental psychology research has recently addressed societal visions and found them to be potential drivers of pro-environmental action. However, little is known about how exactly visions need to be designed so that they change people’s beliefs and motivation to act. In the present study, we tested whether visions are more effective when they are (1) presented visually with real-world examples or (2) self-generated in the course of a dream journey. In an online setting, N = 158 participants were randomly assigned to an active visioning group (dream journey through people’s visionary neighborhood), a passive visioning group (short clips of best practice examples from all over the world), an active control group (meditation dream journey), or a no intervention control group. We found that self-efficacy, environmental cognitive alternatives and pro-environmental intentions were not stronger in the experimental groups compared to our control groups. To the contrary, a passive visioning group even lowered participant’s ability to think in terms of environmental cognitive alternatives. Yet, a dream journey descriptively increased collective efficacy as compared to our control groups. In the presentation, we will raise questions about the effectiveness and mechanisms of societal visions that build on this initial experiment, and present our latest ideas on visions about energy citizenship.
Alexander Burton
Collapse, utopia, and Tasmania: Escape in the prefigurative futures of climate change
Recognising and diverse framings of collapse diversifies and provides depth to our utopias. Not only is collapse distributed unequally through time and inequitably through consequences, but utopias are context-specific and non-uniform. When envisaging the present as a period of disruption and forerunner to collapse we should ask whether sustainability challenges or reinforces social norms. Recognising the interconnections between these three concepts helps situate our imagined futures in time, place, and action.
Daniel Kelly
Problems, possibility, change: urban visions of more local food
Food systems are transforming. In the context of a global trend towards increasing urban populations (and widespread calls for more local production), this means a future with more urban agriculture. However, while celebrated for its ability to catalyse various social, economic, and environmental outcomes, urban agriculture in New Zealand struggles with a narrative of lack of recognition and support. Drawing on Rappaport’s (2000) claim that narratives play an important role in both maintaining the status quo and social change, this talk sketches a range of possible elements for a future with more locally-grown food. In line with food sovereignty’s calls to take grassroots voices seriously (Patel, 2009), these elements originate from 19 in-depth interviews with backyard growers, urban farm volunteers and garden organisers from Auckland New Zealand. Results are split into two main categories. Physical changes outline different locations and organisational structures that might be used to grow and distribute food, from informal exchanges and backyard production to farm cooperatives and larger holdings on the urban periphery. Psychological shifts canvas different aspects of the internal work required to support the above, from valuing organic production to prioritising the conservation of agricultural land, facing colonial dispossession, and increasing people’s sense of place. The talk concludes with a survey of barriers to these changes and a discussion of the ways that different urban agriculture pathways might be used to support broader transformations; in the words of Escobar (2020), to help “make other futures possible” (p.73).
Alix Alto, Ana Gantman
Radical imagination and future thinking
The American political left is often assumed to be a monolith despite Leftists’ assertion of ideological differences and strict ingroup boundaries segregating themselves from Liberals. While both groups may aspire to social change, it is likely their utopian visions and approaches to societal transformation differ. Here we focus on the functions and expressions of radical imagination across people on the political left. Radical imagination —the tendency to envision a utopian future which departs from established institutions toward liberatory social change— encompasses the tendency to imagine radical futures, the richness with which futures can be envisioned, feelings of connectedness to those futures, support and activism for radical movements, and anti-incremental and solidarity values. In this talk I present qualitative findings from a recent study investigating the use of radical imagination across American Leftists and Liberals, and the role the political imaginary in forming ideas about the future. I focus on the content of both groups’ utopian visions of the future with particular attention paid to themes of solidarity, community, and (anti-)capitalism. I discuss the roles of richness, reference, and abstraction in semantic and episodic simulation. I then discuss the role of radical imagination in predicting political identity, affiliation, and attitudes including system justification, and status quo moralization attitudes among Leftists. I conclude by suggesting that radical imagination is an important aspect of future thinking. I discuss its relation to political ideology, and discuss implications for organizing, coalition-building, and collective action.
6:00 pm
BREAK & Breakout rooms with speakers
6:15 pm
closing remarks
Day 2
3 June, 2022
09:00 am, Pacific Time
welcome
09:15 am
SESSION 3
Paul Bain
Understanding the path (we think) we’re on: Dimensions and implications of worldviews about social change.
People hold different perspectives about how the world changes. Examples can be seen in everyday truisms such as “You can’t stop progress” or “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. These general worldviews about change may act as a “lens” people use to help them decide whether to support or oppose social change in specific contexts. Over the past decade me and my colleagues have identified five general change worldviews and have been developing and refining their measurement. These five change worldviews are Progress, Golden Age, Endless Cycle, Maintenance, and Balance. In this talk I will describe these worldviews and their measurement, and give examples of their applications to a range of topics spanning sustainability, technological innovation, and politics. In mapping out these relationships I will identify how different change worldviews appear to vary in importance across contexts, with Balance most critical for understanding support for sustainability, Progress/Golden Age important for understanding responses to innovations, and Golden Age uniquely important for preferring Trump/Republicans in the 2016 US election. These relationships were independent of prominent individual differences (e.g., values, political orientation for elections) or context-specific factors (e.g., self-reported innovativeness for responses to innovations). These findings indicate that our beliefs about the future may not just be about the destination we want to get to, but also about the path we think we’re on.
Sean Nicholas, Niki Harré
How are urban farms prefigurative? Using community psychology to understand empowerment and alternative behaviours
Prefigurative practices are present attempts to enact future social change through daily choices and actions. Efforts to change the local food system, such as through community gardens, have been described as prefigurative in their encouragement of local food consumption and facilitation of positive social relations (Guerlain & Campbell, 2016; Nettle, 2014; Pleyers, 2017), which create a more sustainable future.
Serdar M. Değirmencioğlu
Psychology at the crossroads of climate change
Over the last two decades, there has been a huge increase in scientific publications on climate change. The scientific literature indicates that environmental collapse is inevitable unless serious measures are taken. Psychological research on climate change has shifted its focus primarily toward the way climate change influences psychological well-being. This exclusive focus on the consequences of climate change is misleading because there is an urgent need to address causes of climate change. The leading institutional user of fossil fuel and the single largest producer of greenhouse gases is a military force. The common argument in psychology that individuals must think differently about climate change also applies to psychologists themselves: Psychologists must start considering the impact of militarism on climate change and abandon their reluctance to address military pollution, environmental destruction, and the environmental impact of nuclear weapons. This reluctance is linked with the long-standing militarism within mainstream psychology. Psychologists cannot continue ignore or ally with militarism while militarism produces two global threats: A total nuclear war and environmental collapse. Psychologists can find a more meaningful role in any society focusing on peace, justice and human rights, rather than militarism and national security. In the context of the environment, psychologists must choose to defend the planet, which is home to all. In the context of climate change, psychologists can chart a meaningful course of action only if they focus on environmental justice.
10:15 am
BREAK & Breakout rooms with speakers
10:30 am
SESSION 4
Stylianos Syropoulos, Hanne Watkins, Geoffrey P. Goodwin, Ezra Markowitz
A Two-Dimensional Model of Legacy Motivation: Evidence for the Existence of Impact-Oriented and Reputation-Focused Legacy Motives
Building on past theoretical and empirical work on legacy motives, temporal discounting and intergenerational action, we investigated whether legacy motives can be understood as composed of two related but distinct latent dimensions: “impact” motives (i.e., caring about the positive impact one has on future generations) and “reputation” motives (i.e., caring about whether one is remembered positively). Across five online studies (total N = 1,745), we found consistent support for this two-factor model of legacy motives. Although both legacy motives correlated strongly with one-another (rs ranging from .44 to .74), impact legacy motives related to greater self-reports of environmental movement activism, personal conservation behaviors, and climate change concern relative to the effects of reputation motives, which appear contingent on the perceived visibility of a pro-environmental behavior. We consider the need to understand the dual nature of legacy motives as crucial for the creation of more effective interventions to increase intergenerational concern.
Michael T. Schmitt, Jonathan Mendel, Hadar Hamid, Scott D. Neufeld, Joshua D. Wright
Imagining a sustainable world: A qualitative analysis of Environmental Cognitive Alternatives
Two studies examined what people imagine when asked to imagine a sustainable world. The characteristics of this imagined world represent Environmental Cognitive Alternatives (ECA’s)–ways in which humans could have a different and more sustainable relationship with the rest of nature. In Study 1, participants (n=624) in an online survey responded to an open-ended question asking them to imagine and describe a world in which humans are living sustainably with the natural world. Responses were then coded thematically to reveal the frequency of different types of content. In Study 2, semi-structured interviews were conducted with undergraduate students to provide a richer understanding of how activists (n=11) and non-activists (n=11) describe ECA’s. These interviews were then analyzed to identify themes and patterns in the data (Braun & Clark, 2006). In both studies, we found that that participant’s imagined worlds involved alternative energy and other new technology, but also included differences in how humans relate to other humans. In Study 2 we found that activist participants possessed a richer understanding of the interconnectedness between social issues and environmental issues, including a more nuanced understanding of the roles of technology and social justice.
Annayah Prosser
Transformative and Prefigurative Environments: The psychological value of experiencing pockets of the future in the present
Building a more sustainable and equitable future is a long and arduous task. Agents working towards social change face oftentimes fierce social, political and structural opposition that can have a huge negative impact on interpersonal relationships and mental health. Activist burnout is common, and social support can predict relapse for groups like vegans and vegetarians who change their everyday behaviour in line with their morals. Prefiguration involves “creating pockets of the future in the present”- demonstrating to people that a future is possible by allowing them to experience it first-hand. In this talk, I discuss the psychological value of two such environments: The Vegan Campout in the UK and Burning Man in the US. I argue that despite their stark differences, both of these (temporary) environments provide an important source of efficacy and esteem to activist groups and individuals pursuing societal change by allowing them to experience a microcosm of the future they are working towards. I explore how both environments embrace radical modes of living, in a consumerist and anti-consumerist context. I share preliminary qualitative results from these two environments showing the benefits of attending for reinvigorating identities, personal development, joy and social connection. I also propose a novel research programme for investigating the impact of these environments on activism and behaviour change further, in both those who are, and those who aren’t sympathetic to the future desired. Overall, this research combines approaches from psychology, sociology and politics to provide an account of future-oriented behaviour and societal change.
11:00 am
BREAK and breakout rooms with speakers
11:15 am
PANEL A: Stories
Nick Wood
Just Stories: The Role of Speculative Fiction in Challenging the Growing Climate Apartheid
I discuss ways of using stories: both fiction, specifically speculative fiction (SF), as well as harnessing other (often marginalised stories) to try and find solutions to the current (and growing) climate crisis. This paper will thus foreground narrative approaches and, given an emerging form of ‘climate apartheid’, I make a particular argument for narrative justice as an essential component to finding ‘answers’ – i.e. our stories need to be both radical and inclusive to find solutions fit for the majority of the Earth’s inhabitants (and not just limited to human life too.) Discussing the climate crisis, I emphasise the unequal and unjust nature of this crisis, akin to a form of ‘climate apartheid’. Further developing the idea of using fiction to address climate issues, I highlight the rise of ‘climate fiction’. Given the adage that the personal is political, I will intersperse my account with relevant elements of my own life story too, which carry their own lived veracity – this will include references to climate fiction and my second SF novel Water Must Fall (2020). Finally, if there is time (or perhaps as an alternative workshop structure) we can co-create a collage of desired futures from participants, perhaps even starting to think how we pave the way there.
Matthew Adams
Imagining livable climate futures: Using stories, narratives, and storytelling in counterfactual world-making
In social and environmental psychology it is increasingly recognised that a multitude of everyday practices – how we eat, travel, work and enjoy ourselves – can feel as though they are ‘locked in’ to carbon intensive lifestyle and cultural formations, making it extremely difficult for individuals, groups and communities to envision what achievable or desirable alternatives. From this perspective, collective demand for a just transition to sustainable societies depends on facilitating our capacity, individually and socially, to tell different stories about our future, ones that can address difficult emotions whilst envisioning alternative possibilities. In academic research, methods are needed that can encourage participants to imagine alternative sustainable futures. Work in this area to date has largely been quantitative, involving surveys of experts and computer modelling of possible counterfactual scenarios – i.e. ‘how could the future be different if Y happened or happens instead of X?’. This presentation briefly summarises recent research utilising qualitative and creative methods to address similar questions, by facilitating and analysing people’s capacity to create novel narratives about possible future worlds. We will then consider what we can learn from wider artistic and cultural developments in designing and delivering research and interventions that can resource, facilitate and analyse people’s capacity to collectively engage in counterfactual world-making, utopian thinking, and imagining of ‘alternative futures’ in the context of our ongoing climate and ecological crises.
11:15 am
panel b: Social Psychologies of and for the Future
Carlie D. Trott, Isabel Unanue, Kai Reimer-Watts
Prefigurative Politics and Social Psychologies of the Future: Embodying Transformation in the Present
This panel explores how social movement scholarship on prefigurative politics can inform social psychologies of the future. A guiding principle in prefiguration is means-ends consistency, meaning that the ultimate goals of movement actors shape the methods they employ. Such prefigurative approaches to social change strive to create better worlds ‘in the shell of the old’ by constructing alternative institutions and modes of interaction, reflecting a given movement’s desired social transformations. Prefigurative practices can help enact solutions to present-day problems, and be used to co-create inspiring futures worth striving towards. Applying prefiguration to our own scholarship we can ask, how might our visions of a better future shape our own research methodologies and practices? Here we highlight the value of interdisciplinarity, arts-based approaches, and action research. We also explore how findings in contemplative neuroscience are shaping our notions of human potential and can inform our practices by prioritizing wellness and just relations. Lastly, we look towards cultivating a more socially engaged psychology through training the next generation of psychologists, emphasizing the crucial role played by academic psychologists in empowering future change agents. This includes exploring the role of psychologists in convoking radical imagination with communities to co-create and enact visions of alternative futures. Shifting the culture of psychology to one that more directly contributes to building a better world is a bottom-up process. Beyond ‘researching towards’ a better world, through prefiguration, psychologists can be active participants in its creation.
Thomas W. Schubert, Gulnaz Anjum, Diana M. Lizarazo, Anca Minescu
Teaching for the Future: Promoting Social and Climate Sustainability through Teaching in the Global-MINDS Program
We anticipate a future characterized by migration and diversity within and between societies. Migration and diversity will be intertwined with climate change in complex ways, which requires social change and large scale collaboration. How do we prepare for such a future? Our answer is creating educational arenas for social and cultural psychology where students acquire knowledge and skills to act as practitioners and researchers in the future.
12:15 pm
closing remarks
POSTERS
2 June, 2022
04:30 pm, Pacific Time
Meg Hoffer-Collins, Lauri Hyers
Apocalypse, Restoration, and Emergence: Spontaneous Use of Archetypical Narrative Devices in Solicited Diaries of College Seniors Writing During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic led to grave human loss, economic disorder, and disruption of everyday life for many people around the world. For some young adults in the USA, this was their first personal experience of a global crisis of this magnitude, threatening their sense of security for the future. As a source of comfort in crisis, people have long turned to archetypal motifs and stories of disaster and triumph to gain a sense of meaning, order, predictability, and even hope for the future. We explored the spontaneous use of such narratives by university seniors writing in diaries about the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic during a senior capstone course, just as they were finishing their degrees and moving on to the next phase of their lives. Two coders, a longtime diary researcher in the higher educational context and a licensed psychological college counselor, conducted a thematic analysis (Braun and Clark, 2006) on a selection of entries from 58 diaries written for a multi-cohort diary study spanning more than two years. We coded for reference to three myths proposed by Alex Evans, Casper ter Kuile, and Ivor Williams of the Collective Psychology Project (2017): apocalypse myths, restoration myths, and emergence myths. We explored changes in relative reliance on each of these myths throughout the Covid-19 saga, selecting examples from the diaries. We discuss how such stories may help to increase collaboration and reduce polarization as we face other impending global threats such climate change, resource insecurity, and the specter of escalating wars.
Elyse Collyer, Gabrielle Filip-Crawford
Developing an Interactive Ecofeminist-Based Intervention
Ecofeminist theory argues the oppression of women and non-dominant groups, more broadly, is linked with the domination of the environment. Indeed, nations with more gender equality enact greater environmental protections. Exploring this connection at the individual level, this study frames and begins pilot-testing elements of an interactive game-style intervention to improve attitudes and behaviors surrounding pro-environmentalism and social justice through civic engagement. Game-style interventions offer a practical and accessible opportunity to educate participants and alter corresponding behaviors. Such interventions can be more effective compared to traditional behavioral interventions because they are accessible to large, diverse audiences via smartphones and computers and present information in fun or approachable formats. In the first pilot test of this future intervention, participants viewed multiple fictitious profiles of city council candidates formatted in two different styles and responded to questions measuring their perceptions and the expected voting behavior of the candidates. In the second pilot test, participants read one of two descriptions of a hypothetical city, allocated funds for a city budget, and voted for city council candidates. In both studies, participants reported their environmental and gender attitudes and political identification. Data from both studies will guide the continued development of this ecofeminist game-style intervention.
Mark A. Ferguson, Rachel M. Kaminski, Leah K. Hollander, Allison M. Waite, & Zachary N. Mikkelson
Emergent ingroup members in the US mainstream: A descriptive analysis of 245 social groups
A growing number of researchers have become interested in the emergence of novel social identities in society, as well as their potential for promoting social change (Jans, 2021; Ntontis et al., 2021; Thomas et al., 2019). The emergent ingroup model (Ferguson et al., 2019) provides a social identity perspective on the formation and maintenance of social stability and change in society. It places recategorization (novel social categories) and remobilization (novel intergroup behavior) at the heart of social change—emergent ingroup members working toward a better future together, in the face of emergent outgroup resistance. The present research examines whether 245 social groups are seen as emergent or established ingroups, as well as emergent or established outgroups, in American society Five-hundred and fifty participants completed a digital card sorting task about how these groups have been viewed in society over an extended period of time (Study 1 = 50 years; Study 2 = 100 years). The groups were sorted into one-of-five categories: 1) always negative (established outgroup), 2) more negative (emergent outgroup), 3) more positive (emergent ingroup), 4) always positive (established ingroup), or 5) not sure. As expected, emergent ingroup members included the prejudice targets studied in social psychology (based on ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc.), as well as eco-friendly groups studied in environmental psychology (environmentalists, animal rights activists, vegans, etc.). Emergent outgroup members included these groups’ opponents in society (homophobic people, racists, climate change skeptics, etc.). These studies offer initial support for the emergent ingroup model.
Kathleen Hudson, Mengyao Li, Linda Skitka
Does priming utopian versus dystopian mindsets affect liberals and conservatives differently?
Moral motives theory (MMT, Janoff-Bulman & Carnes, 2013) predicts liberals and conservatives are motivated by different moral concerns; liberals’ motivations are more prescriptive and approach-oriented compared to conservatives who are more proscriptive and avoidance-oriented. We tested MMT by priming utopian (approach) and dystopian (avoidance) mindsets for outcomes related to either the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests or the U.S. 2020 presidential election. The results of two studies in the contexts of the BLM movement (N = 436) and the 2020 election (N = 509) found partial evidence of ideological differences. Mediational analyses revealed that a utopian (vs. dystopian) mindset for the BLM movement and for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, predicted stronger activist intentions through stronger positive emotions, β = 0.12, CI = [0.002, 0.24] and β = 0.13, CI = [0.07, 0.21], respectively, for both liberals and conservatives. However, a dystopian (vs. control) mindset for the 2020 election predicted stronger activist intentions through stronger negative emotions to a greater extent for conservatives, β = 0.56, CI = [0.40, 0.75] than liberals, β = 0.24, CI = [0.02, 0.45]. Whereas approach-oriented outcomes were similarly motivating for liberals and conservatives, avoidance-oriented outcomes were more strongly motivating for conservatives compared to liberals, partially supporting MMT.
Joseph Kantenbacher, Deidra Miniard, Nathan Geiger, Landon Yoder, Shahzeen Z. Attari
Catastrophe or Sustainability: young adults face the future
There are a variety of current challenges that will shape our future, such as climate change impacts, socio-economic disparities, the role of technology in society, and changing population dynamics. As ideas about the future influence actions taken today, it is important to study what possible futures young adults anticipate and how they believe those futures could be realized. In 2019, using an in-person paper survey, we asked students (N = 193; ages 18-26) to describe their best, most-likely, and worst possible futures for the United States in either the year 2050 or 2100. Participants were also asked questions to explore what would need to happen to achieve these futures and the actors who have influence in shaping the future. We found that environmental sustainability features prominently in articulations of the future, with most participants referenced the environment in at least one of their three futures. However, climate change was not the environmental issue receiving the greatest share of attention. Rather, issues related to waste production and disposal (including recycling) were more commonly cited. The environment was cited as one of the top sources of despair about the future and climate change concern rated as one of the best predictors of perceived future quality of life. The images of and ideas about the future collected by this work can help to engage productively with young adults in addressing today’s pressing challenges, including those related to environmental sustainability.
Anthony Lantian, Michael Rose
Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Attitude Toward Transhumanism
Transhumanism (or post-humanism) is a cultural and intellectual movement that emphasizes the possibility and desirability of improvements of the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies aiming to eliminate aging and enhancing human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. The allegedly transhumanist agenda of the elites are regularly pointed out by people who believe in conspiracy theories (e.g., transhumanists suspected of poisoning people or using the COVID-19 pandemic to usher in a post-human era, Infowars, 2017, 2020). We posit the following hypothesis: the more people believe in conspiracy theories, the less favorable will become their attitudes toward the transhumanist movement. We tested this link in two pre-registered studies (based on two French samples, total N after exclusion = 550). We found no evidence of a negative link between belief in conspiracy theories and attitudes toward transhumanism (in Study 1, r(243) = .06, 95% CI[-.06, .19], p = .322; in Study 2, r(298) = -.06, 95% CI[-.17, .05], p = .287). These null results were supported by Bayesian analyses (in Study 1: BF01 = 4.59, in Study 2: BF01 = 18.03), equivalence test, and an internal mini meta-analysis (r = -.002, 95% CI [-.12, .12], z = -0.03, p = .972, test of heterogeneity: Q(1) = 2.10, p = .148, I² = 52.3%). In conclusion, our work paves the way to a better understanding of the attitudes toward an international cultural and intellectual movement that, in the future, will undoubtedly grow in popularity and influence.
Francesco Rigoli
A computational model of political motivation
I aim to introduce a theoretical framework about people’s motivation to be engaged in political actions. The framework is based on computational modelling, namely on an attempt to frame the problem in formal mathematical terms. The proposal is that an individual represents different states of society encompassing the past, present, and future, but also fictive societies such as utopias and counterfactual societies. These representations are proposed to be at the root of political motivation according to reference dependent cognitive processes. The talk will discuss how the model can help providing a theoretical framework for understanding why people engage in political actions related with important contemporary issues such as climate change and promotion of human rights. The talk builds upon and extends the work presented in a recent paper (Rigoli (2021) Political motivation: a referent dependent mathematical model, Journal of Social and Political Psychology).
Stylianos Syropoulos, Ezra Markowitz, Trisha Shrum
On the Antecedents of Intergenerational Proenvironmental Behavior: Perceived Responsibility, Legacy Motivation and Future Self Continuity Independently Relate to Increased Proenvironmental Behavior
Past research has highlighted that perceived responsibility towards future generations, legacy motivation, and increased future self-continuity all motivate proenvironmental behavior and reduce intergenerational discounting. However, the degree to which each of these psychological mechanisms is independent of one another, as well as whether they each independently contribute to increased proenvironmental behavior remains unexplored. In a large correlational study (N = 1211) we evaluated whether each of these mechanisms, would independently relate to increased proenvironmental outcomes. Bivariate correlations suggested that perceived responsibility, legacy motivation and future self-continuity are independent constructs which all relate to elevated environmental concern and self-reported proenvironmental behavior. Results remained significant even after adjusting for key demographic covariates (e.g., political ideology). Legacy motivation specifically appeared to be uncorrelated with political preference and hope for the future. Each of these mechanisms could prove useful for interventions attempting to increase proenvironmental behaviors.
Andrej Simić, Simona Sacchi, Marco Perugini
Being Righteous for The Future Self: Future Self-continuity Increases Considerations of Individualizing Moral Foundations
Self-perceptions over time considerably affect decision-making in different domains, including the health and economic sphere. In this contribution, we investigate the relation between future self-continuity, the extent one feels connected to their future self, and responsible and ethical behavior in the present. Specifically, the work aims to explore if perceived similarity to the future self increases the consideration of individualizing moral foundations. In Study 1, we found correlational evidence that future self-similarity is positively related to concerns about harm and justice (individualizing moral foundations) and unrelated to authority, loyalty, and purity (binding moral foundations). The effect was moderated by social self-esteem. Study 2 provides causal evidence that future self-similarity increases concerns about individualizing moral foundations. Participants that engaged in the experimental tasks were more concerned about individualizing moral foundations than their control counterparts. The experimental effect was mediated by future self-similarity. Study 3 was conducted to test the mediation effect of state-level moral identity centrality. The results supported our hypothesis that the future self-continuity manipulation will affect individualizing moral foundations through higher levels of future self-continuity and the importance of the moral self. Our results suggest that being able to project oneself to the future mentally might lead to a greater deliberation of other people’s rights and safety.
Joel Ginn, Ezra Markowitz, Dan Chapman, Meaghan Guckian, Se Min Suh, Brian Lickel
Structural vs. Individual Change Beliefs: Top-Down or Bottom-Up Change
Climate change is the result of both individual and collective actions. Proposed solutions to mitigate its impacts include both individual and structural level change. While many experts have their own beliefs about the efficacy of such “bottom up” (i.e., individual focused) versus “top down” (i.e., systems focused) approaches, non-experts hold their own, heterogeneous beliefs on how this issue should be tackled and what the correct actions to take towards a sustainable future are. These beliefs are important to understand as they may impact individual behavior, policy support, and inclinations towards collective action. In a sample of student activists (n = 30) and a brief intercept study (n = 456) we examine individuals’ beliefs about the most appropriate and effective ways to address climate change. People’s attributions of blame for climate change as well as their emotional responses predict variation in such top-down and bottom-up beliefs; in turn, these beliefs predict differential preferences about where environmental groups should focus their attention and energy.
Joy Love, Michael Wenzel, Lydia Woodyatt
Vision thinking for collective action
Vision thinking is specified as simulation of a positive or ideal future of a collective, and operationalised as comprising the formation of mental representations, unrestrained thinking, creativity, and positiveness. Seven studies (ranging from N = 99 to N = 776) support a vision thinking collective action model where vision thinking is positively associated with motivation for collective action via the collective action predictors: social identity, efficacy, anger, and (with less evidence) hope. Collectively, the studies investigate vision thinking in groups in the lab, online vision thinking by individuals, online vision thinking in groups, and vision thinking by employees in a government department in response to a new strategy. The studies are based on themes including climate change, gender equity in politics, universal access to education, sustainable cities, and gender equity in leadership. Further findings are that vision thinking can be induced and that more prescription about the outcomes to imagine can aid engagement in vision thinking, particularly where there is initial resistance due to threat or a clash with beliefs regarding the specified topic to imagine. Vision thinking can lead to the formation of a social identity that informs collective action. Vision thinking can make what is initially perceived as impossible seem more possible, which in turn is associated with efficacy and motivation for collective action. We discuss the importance of group members’ vision thinking for collective action, and for giving meaning to the visions projected by leaders to influence collective action.
Marie Chevrier, Bosone, L., Delhomme, P., Zenasni, F.
Socio-cognitive model of actions for the ecological transition – an extension of Protection Motivation Theory
Societal transformations needed for climate change adaptation and mitigation must be supported by citizens to be effective, whether by changing their lifestyle, by supporting environmental public policies, by participating in demonstrations or by convincing others.
Giampier Guerrero Villanueva, Joanna Roszak
Go Green or You Will Wither: On the Role of Access to Quality Green Areas in the City and Our Well-Being
Cities all over the world grow at a fast pace (Hunter, 2017). Many authors indicate a pressing need to develop a well-thought-out agenda of interdisciplinary research on the future of cities (Future of the Cities, 2016). Even though such issues as housing, city services, or economics are often prioritized, we should not forget that cities of the future will also need a lot of green space. Not only will this have obvious environmental benefits, but it may also enhance the well-being of city dwellers. Research indicates that exposure to natural stimuli may help reduce stress and improve our mental health (e.g., Martin et al., 2020, Marsell et al., 2020). This presentation includes preliminary data (ca. 52 persons) from a currently running cross-sectional study on the access to green areas and the well-being of inhabitants of the city of Lima, Peru. Among the factors we measured are quantity, quality, accessibility of green areas, and restorative quality, while the main DVs are well-being, understood as vitality (Ryan & Frederic, 1997) and life satisfaction (Diener et al., 1985), and positive and negative affect. Preliminary results have not yet yielded any significant intercorrelations, while the study is still in progress. If, as assumed, access to nature may indeed safeguard us against negative well-being, those and similar results may serve to prepare guidelines for city authorities and decision-makers in the area of environmental care. Those may also inform psychosocial interventions targeting the well-being of people living in cities.
Iryna Zelinska, Joanna Roszak
“You Are What You Eat”. Identity, Self-Actualization, and Self-Esteem in Vegetarians and Omnivores
This presentation is based on the experimental exploration of whether adherence to a broadly-understood plant-based diet vs. omnivore and/or meat-based diet may relate to a sense of identity, self-esteem, or self-actualization of its followers. Research indicates that followers of plant-based diets may indeed value their diets as a crucial part of their social identity, as such being an important aspect of their well-being, compared to omnivores (Nezlek et al., 2020, Rosenfeld & Burrow, 2017). The current study (N = 72) was an experiment, with a set of non-manipulated variables. The manipulated variable was the salience of social identity in connection with the dietary choice (vs. baseline condition with no reminder of the importance of a given diet). The main DVs were self-actualization (Crandall & Jones, 1991), self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965), distance from the outgroup (Mather et al., 2017), and identification with the ingroup (Postmes, Haslam, & Jans, 2013). The majority of participants were comprised of people who follow carnivorous/omnivorous diets consuming meat/fish on a daily basis (N=51), with 21 vegetarians and vegans. Preliminary results indicate that self-actualization and distance from the outgroup were higher for a group of vegetarians and vegans. However, self-esteem for vegetarians and vegans was lower than for carnivorous groups. Identification with the ingroup was higher with vegetarians and vegans, as opposed to carnivores.
Eva Amaya Garcia Ferres, Matthew Baldwin
When We Legitimize Bad Systems: Distinguishing Tacit and Bolstering Forms of System Justification
A substantial portion of the System Justification literature has conflated the legitimation of the status quo with positive evaluations of socio-political systems. We propose a distinction between people’s opinions on how good or bad a system is (system evaluation) and how willing they are to support, or challenge said system (motivation orientation). This distinction allows us to distinguish between people who are motivated to support a system they view as positive (bolstering system justification), and those who are motivated to support a system they deem harmful (tacit system justification). In two pre-registered correlational studies (N = 320) we find evidence for this 2-dimensional map of system evaluations and motivation orientations. Only participants with a negative evaluation of the system and a motive to challenge the status quo report a significantly lower tendency to tacitly justify the system. In addition, we find evidence for the differentiation of bolstering and tacit forms of system justification, whereby the former predicts higher subjective well-being, and the latter predicts greater hopelessness for social change and lack of personal control over the system. Our research informs how people think about the status quo, and why they may often stand behind harmful systems. In addition, our results highlight the limited conditions under which people may challenge the status quo
Bojana Većkalov, Natalia Zarzeczna, Esther Niehoff, Jonathon McPhetres, Bastiaan T. Rutjens
A matter of time… consideration of future consequences and temporal distance contribute to the ideology gap in climate change scepticism
Factors that contribute to the well-established ideology gap in climate change beliefs (i.e., conservatives’ scepticism about climate change and its severity) remain underexplored. In the present research, we propose that there are differences in the consideration of future consequences, as well as the perception of climate change in time, between conservatives and liberals which, in part, contribute to this gap. Across three studies (total N = 654) in the Netherlands and the UK, we demonstrate that, compared to liberals, conservatives tend to consider future consequences of their behaviour less and perceive the effects of climate change as further away in the future. Furthermore, we find that temporal distance to climate change, and, to a lesser extent, consideration of future consequences, can partially account for higher levels of scepticism about climate change on the conservative side of the ideological spectrum. Besides contributing to a better understanding of this ideology bias, these results have implications for climate change communication.
Fanny Lalot, Sanna Ahvenharju, Matti Minkkinen, Alain Quiamzade
Aware of the Future? Development and Validation of the Futures Consciousness Scale
Futures Consciousness refers to the capacity that a person has for understanding, anticipating, and preparing for the future. Although the concept is widely used in the field of futures research, no quantitative tool exists yet that assesses it. Drawing from a recent five-dimensional sociopsychological model that considers Time perspective, Agency beliefs, Openness to alternatives, Systems perception, and Concern for others as interrelated sub-dimensions of a general construct of Futures Consciousness, we developed a composite 20-item scale that measures Futures Consciousness as an interindividual difference. The psychometric properties of this new scale were examined through a dual approach of exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses with a total of 2,985 participants in three languages (English, French, and Finnish). The scale’s structure proved satisfactory and fitted the hypothesized five-dimensional model in all three languages. Measures of internal and external validity (convergent and concurrent) also indicated good psychometric properties. Notably, individuals’ scores were positively related to the adoption of several social future-oriented behaviors such as pro-environmental and civic behavior. As such, the developed scale proves a reliable tool that could be of use for scholars and practitioners in futures studies as well as psychology.
Swetlana Fork
Negotiating a sense of hope in the face of global threats – Insights from a grounded theory study on the imagination of collective futures in environmental movements
By definition, the inherently future-oriented concept of hope does neither depend on rational argumentation nor on concrete visions. Rather, it oftentimes manifests as a feeling accompanied by a more or less vague belief in fortunate future outcomes. In my presentation, I shed light on two deeply interlaced questions concerning the dimension of the deliberate vs. non-deliberate nature of hope: How and under which conditions is a sense of hope described to emerge in discussions and interviews on imagined collective futures (1.)? And by which means and to which extent may it be “produced” intentionally (2.)? Related to these aspects, I will discuss its psychosocial functions.
Matthew Coleman, Lucius Caviola, Geoffrey Goodwin, Joshua Lewis
Preferences for the long-term continuation of humanity
Prior research has demonstrated that most people do not want humanity to go extinct relatively soon (Schubert, Caviola, & Faber, 2019). This may simply be because of welfarist or utilitarian considerations, such that people want future people to live long, happy lives. We hypothesized that there is an additional important psychological factor: a preference for the continued long-term existence of humanity, above and beyond welfarist considerations. In a first study, we find support for this hypothesis by demonstrating that people prefer a longer, narrower humanity (e.g., 1 million people at a time for 300,000 years) over a short, wider humanity (e.g., 1 billion people at a time for 300 years), even when the total number of people and happiness are held constant. In a follow-up study, we will test the hypothesis that this preference is driven by a greater sense of personal meaning when knowing that humanity will continue for a long time. This work has implications for moral philosophy, as well as the prioritization of global problems that concern the long-term future.
Fred Basso, Dario Krpan
Measuring the transformative utopian impulse for planetary health in the age of the Anthropocene
Transformative utopian impulse for planetary health is people’s propensity to have thoughts and engage in actions of which the purpose is to transform the current society into a better one in the future by addressing existing global issues.
Sasha Brietzke, Meghan Meyer
Self-representations in the future become indistinguishable with distance from the present
A basic principle of perception is that as objects increase in distance from an observer, they also become logarithmically compressed in perception (i.e., not differentiated from one another), making them hard to distinguish. Could this basic principle apply to perhaps our most meaningful mental representation: our own sense of self across time? I will report four studies that suggest selves are increasingly indiscriminable with temporal distance from the present, as well. In Studies 1-3, participants made trait ratings across various time points in the future. We found that participants compressed their future selves, relative to their present self. This effect was preferential to the self and could not be explained by the alternative possibility that individuals simply perceive arbitrary self-change irrespective of temporal distance. In Study 4, we tested for neural evidence of temporal self-compression by having participants complete trait ratings across time points while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Representational similarity analysis (RSA) was used to determine if neural self-representations are compressed with temporal distance, as well. We found evidence of temporal self-compression in areas of the default network, including medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Specifically, neural pattern similarity between self-representations were logarithmically compressed with temporal distance. Taken together, our findings may help explain some of the counterintuitive ways people treat their temporally distant selves (e.g., making choices that deny climate change). Further, these findings may explain why imaging the future in sharp detail is a challenging task.
Gavin Sullivan
Who resists the future? The role of reactionary orientation and collective emotions is opposing recognition of a climate emergency
As Kim Stanley Robinson (2020) explores in his fictional account (“The ministry for the future”) of possible collective, international responses to climate change in the near future, vested interests and collective identity-dependent (often national) stances contribute to resistance towards attempts to address climate change in the present. Support for a New Green Deal framework to COVID-19 recovery and recognition of a climate change emergency are two recent political examples that show how the future is no longer conceived as a distant, unpredictable possibility, but instead can and should be changed through future-focused thinking, feeling and action. Building on insights from political and social psychological analyses of reactionary political orientations, this paper outlines a theoretical model of resistance to progressive climate change policies which combines work on political reactionism with concepts of collective emotions and explores evidence for related environmental and contextual determinants of support for “change backwards”. Results from the second wave of a two-wave survey of English citizens conducted in 2020 are used to highlight the factors that predict resistance to future-focused climate policies. Practical suggestions are made for attempts to potentially engage with citizens who might actually have strongly ambivalent feelings about the past that are preventing full consideration of the needs of future generations (i.e., they are not simply suffering from collective narcissism nor experiencing a naïve collective nostalgia).