Envisioning Change: An Empirical Test of the Social Psychological Model of Utopian Thinking and Collective Action

Badaan, Vivienne; Akil, Carla; Zebian, Yara; Jost, John T.

doi:10.37256/jspr.1120221140

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…In contrast to the majority, who wanted to create a new society based on their values, only few participants stated that their primary motivation was to re‐establish the pre‐pandemic society. In line with recent research (Badaan et al., 2022), this finding suggests that utopian thinking about the potential of a highly idealised future might have encouraged protesting. One reason might be that utopian thinking provides an avenue of hope that encourages efficacy perceptions and therefore increases protesters’ likeliness to participate (Badaan et al., 2020).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Thus, our analysis demonstrates the value of integrating temporal extensions into the SIMCA model to get a more holistic understanding of people's motivation to engage in collective action, as suggested recently (e.g. Badaan et al., 2022; Freel & Bilali, 2022; Power, 2020). Integrating social‐identity‐based and cultural‐historical‐based approaches, such as those illustrated in Figure 3, can help unravel the psychology of collective action, also outside the present study's focus on anti‐containment measures.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…Previous research suggests such utopian imagination may increase perceived action feasibility (Friedmann, 2000) and goal‐directed behaviour (Badaan et al., 2020). Recently, one experimental study found that utopian thinking increased social and personal hope, which in turn was related to stronger collective action intentions (Badaan et al., 2022). Thus, a clear vision of an ideal future might have increased participants’ goal‐directed behaviour (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of temporal analogies in collective movements

Coenen,

Jüttemeier,

Obaidi

et al. 2024

Euro J Social Psych

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Although the importance of temporal perspectives for understanding collective movements has been theoretically emphasised, they are rarely considered in research. Focusing on the mass protests against COVID‐19 policies in Germany, we investigated how protesters make use of temporal references in their protest narratives. Results from 11 multi‐site protest observations and 31 interviews showed that participants (a) drew historical perpetrator and victim analogies and imagined a dystopian future, bolstering perceptions of injustice, (b) drew on resistance narratives and imagined the ideal, utopian future society, increasing their perceived efficacy and (c) countered feelings of insignificance by identifying with past heroes. Protesters living in the East of Germany drew comparatively more resistance analogies than those living in the West, who often likened those complying with the COVID‐19 policies to the perpetrators of the past national‐socialist and communist dictatorships. The findings empirically underline the importance of integrating historical–cultural–future perspectives into models of collective action.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of temporal analogies in collective movements

Coenen,

Jüttemeier,

Obaidi

et al. 2024

Euro J Social Psych

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“…Indeed, emerging research supports this conjecture: Fernando et al (2018) reported that inducing participants to think about their version of an ideal society increased motivation to take action for social change. Similarly, Badaan et al (2022) found that reading a text about a utopian society elicited greater hope, which in turn predicted intentions to engage in collective action for social change.…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

Profiles of an Ideal Society: The Utopian Visions of Ordinary People

Fernando

Burden

Judge

et al. 2022

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

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Throughout history, people have expressed the desire for an ideal society—a utopia. These imagined societies have motivated action for social change. Recent research has demonstrated this motivational effect among ordinary people in English-speaking countries, but we know little about the specific content of ordinary people’s utopian visions in different cultures. Here we report that a majority of samples from four countries—Australia, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States—converge on a small number of utopian visions: a Modern Green utopia, a Primitivist utopia, a Futurist utopia, and a Religious utopia. Although the prevalence of these utopia profiles differed across countries, there was a cross-cultural convergence in utopian visions. These shared visions may provide common ground for conversations about how to achieve a better future across cultural borders.

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“…Collective action is a popular research field that originates from the assessment of protest movements. It is by now widely applied across disciplines such as psychology (e.g., van Zomeren et al, 2008;Jost et al, 2017;Badaan et al, 2022;Galesic et al, 2022), political sciences (e.g., Ostrom, 1990Ostrom, , 2009Jagers et al, 2020), sociology (e.g., .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What makes people adapt together? An empirically grounded conceptual model on the enablers and barriers of collective climate change adaptation

2023

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Coping with and adapting to climate change impacts are collective action problems that require broad joint efforts to reduce current and future risks. This is most obvious for highly vulnerable and exposed individuals, whose capacities to adapt to recurrent environmental threats are mostly bound in their ability to work together – not only in the immediate disaster situation but also in the long-term to secure their livelihoods. While there are explanatory models for collective action in the context of climate change, there is still a need to validate them further for vulnerable residents in high-risk contexts that prioritize cultural values of collective self-understanding, mutual support, and reciprocity. Additionally, the identified factors that facilitate collective climate action are currently quite abstract and may not be very useful for practical application and policy development. Addressing these gaps, we build on existing collective action models and a qualitative analysis of empirical data from kampung cooperatives in Jakarta to develop a conceptual framework explaining what triggers individuals to start acting collectively and which factors motivate them to keep being engaged in long-term collective adaptation action. It highlights the need to differentiate between what we will call initial triggers and long-term motivators to better understand and advance collective adaptation efforts in high-risk contexts. This novel differentiation of motivation factors enhances our conceptual understanding of collective adaptation. Furthermore, the findings may inform practice and policy-making toward enhancing and maintaining collective adaptation initiatives.

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Envisioning Change: An Empirical Test of the Social Psychological Model of Utopian Thinking and Collective Action

Cited by 13 publications

References 52 publications

The role of temporal analogies in collective movements

The role of temporal analogies in collective movements

Profiles of an Ideal Society: The Utopian Visions of Ordinary People

What makes people adapt together? An empirically grounded conceptual model on the enablers and barriers of collective climate change adaptation

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