Optimism for the World’s Future versus the Personal Future: Application to Environmental Attitudes

Abstract

Optimism and pessimism for the future have been widely studied, but little is known about distinctions among types of optimism. In the present work optimism for the personal future and optimism for a more global world's future were shown to be related yet distinct variables among responses from 156 undergraduate students. Furthermore, World Optimism predicted lower levels of pro-environmental attitudes (the New Ecological Paradigm) whereas Personal Optimism did not after its shared variance with World Optimism was removed. Personal Optimism (but not World Optimism) was associated with Consideration of Future Consequences, a measure of locus of control, and other measures of optimism and pessimism. Discussion addresses this distinction and its implications for understanding environmental attitudes and other individual differences.Keywords Environmental attitudes . Environmental concern . Optimism and pessimism . Locus of control . Consideration of future consequences How likely is it that the next year will be terrific for you? How likely is it that the next year will be terrific for the world? Though relatively little research has been conducted to explore this difference, available evidence suggests that people are more optimistic for their own personal future than they are for the world's future (Wenglert and Rosen 2000). This and other distinctions between these domains of optimism raise important questions about their relation to personality and attitudinal variables. Of particular interest here are the relations of optimism for the personal and for the world's future to environmental attitudes.Psychologists have a unique role and responsibility to contribute knowledge about people's environmental attitudes and behaviors because many of the world's most serious ecological challenges (such as climate change and resource depletion) are due to human action (cf.

Valance and Perceived Control in Personal and Collective Future Thinking

“…Contrary to our predictions, personal or collective perceived control did not predict psychological well-being. Past research has shown that perceived control in personal events is related to higher positivity in future thoughts and well-being (Brown, 2012;McElwee & Brittain, 2009). The present studies differ from the previous ones in the type of perceived control measured.…”

“…However, little is known about how personal and collective future thinking differ in perceived control over the relevant events. Research has suggested that perceived control for future events tends to go hand-in-hand with optimism about the future (McElwee & Brittain, 2009;Topcu & Hirst, 2019. Given that people tend to perceive their personal future to be brighter than their country's future (Shrikanth et al, 2018;Yamashiro & Roediger, 2019), they may view the personal future as more under control than the collective future.…”

Promotion Orientation Explains Why Future-Oriented People Exercise and Eat Healthy

“…For example, with regard to self-guides , as noted earlier, Ouellette and her colleagues (2005) found that those scoring high in CFC were more motivated to exercise after contemplating their ideal future self, whereas those low in CFC were more motivated to exercise after contemplating prototypes of other exercisers (which presumably highlighted normative concerns of what one “should do”). With regard to end goals , research has shown that those scoring high on the CFC-Future subscale are more likely than those scoring low on the CFC-Future subscale to forgo smaller, certain rewards in favor of larger but less certain rewards (Joireman & Balliet, 2012), consistent with the idea that CFC-Future is associated with a tendency to focus on “pursuing (uncertain) gains.” Similarly, research has shown that those scoring high on the CFC-Immediate subscale are more likely to opt for smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards (Joireman et al, 2008), consistent with the idea that CFC-Immediate is associated with a tendency to focus on “preventing (immediate) losses.” Finally, with regard to cognitive style s, research has shown that those scoring high in CFC are more optimistic than those scoring low in CFC (O’Brien-McElwee & Brittain, 2009; Strathman et al, 1994), suggesting connections with an “eager” style. On the other hand, high scores on the CFC-Immediate subscale are associated with higher trait hostility (Joireman, Anderson, & Strathman, 2003, data reanalyzed at the subscale level), suggesting connections with a more “vigilant” style.…”

Climate change risk perception in the USA and alignment with sustainable travel behaviours

“…Students were more likely to believe positive futures would occur compared to the negative futures [ 24 ]. Similarly, undergraduates were more likely to be optimistic about their personal futures compared to the world’s future [ 25 ]. Optimism has been seen in about 80% of people regardless of race, religion and age [ 18 ].…”