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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.