Reconciling intergenerational conflicts with imaginary future generations: evidence from a participatory deliberation practice in a municipality in Japan

Human societies face various unsustainability problems, often characterized as “wicked” in the sense that they have no single definitive formulation. Thus, the role of creativity or insight in solving such problems has attracted a lot of attention from scholars. Therefore, this study investigated how an emerging methodology, Future Design (and its unique intervention of asking problem solvers to take a future generation’s perspective), can facilitate insight problem solving (IPS) and the generation of sustainable solutions. In a municipality in Japan, nine officers from a bureau responsible for water supply management participated in a series of seven Future Design workshops. In two groups, these officers created visions of water supply management 30 years into the future, taking the perspective of a future generation working in the same municipality. On the basis of in-depth transcription analyses of these workshops, we obtained a hypothetical framework demonstrating that four factors mediate the influence of perspective taking on IPS: (a) Discounting the present generation’s cost, (b) contrasting the future with the present, (c) deconstructing hierarchy, and (d) intellectual joy. While the first three mediators (a, b, and c) were considered to be contributors to the problem reframing and IPS via constraint relaxation, the fourth (d) was considered to do so via positive interpretation. Further, the reason why taking a future generation’s perspective is likely to lead to sustainable solutions, useful for the future—rather than the present—generation, is also discussed.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking a Future Generation’s Perspective as a Facilitator of Insight Problem-Solving: Sustainable Water Supply Management

Nakagawa

2020

“…Therefore, it is our conjecture that generative actions may be able to uniformly contribute to individual SH, irrespective of prosocial and proself motives behind the actions, and, therefore, generativity is a consistent and robust determinant of SH in the analysis. If this is the case, future design approach and/or some other social devices suggested by the authors in [24][25][26]49,[70][71][72] will play a significant role in connecting the current generation to future generations as a possible institutional framework to increase or maintain the generativity for intergenerational wellbeing and sustainability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our paper contributes to the existing knowledge by answering whether or not people become happier by being more generative. The answer is identified to be "yes," and thus the "future design," which seeks to connect the current generation with future generations, shall be considered and recommended as a promising institution to maintain sustainability through enhancing generativity along with happiness [25,26,70].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Answering the research question enables us to suggest some institutions that ensure sustainability by inducing people to be prosocial and generative without compromising happiness. Some researchers advocate new institutions to connect people in the current generation with one another as well as with future generations to solve intragenerational and intergenerational problems, suggesting a new field of research, "future design" [24][25][26]. If our question is answered "yes," the future design can possibly be considered and recommended as a promising institution to be able to enhance generativity and prosociality for not only sustainability, but also happiness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Happiness, Generativity and Social Preferences in a Developing Country: A Possibility of Future Design

Shahen

Kotani

2019

Happiness, generativity and social preferences are pivotal factors for the betterment and sustainability of societies. However, little is known about the relationships among happiness, generativity and social preferences, along with sociodemographic factors, within a single analytical framework. We hypothesize that generativity and social preferences are the determinants of happiness, posing a research question “Are people happier by being prosocial and/or generative for sustainability?” We conduct a survey experiment, collecting data from five subjective happiness scales, generativity, social value orientation and sociodemographic variables in one urban area (Dhaka) and two rural areas (Bogra and Gaibandha) in Bangladesh. With the data, we empirically characterize determinants of subjective happiness with a focus on generativity and social value orientation, controlling for sociodemographic factors. The statistical analysis consistently shows a positive association between subjective happiness and generativity, irrespective of the type of happiness scale, while social value orientation does not exhibit any significance. Rural residents have lower peer relative happiness than urban residents, and household income has a positive relationship with general subjective happiness, leading each of these factors to be significant in overall subjective happiness. In summary, generativity, income and residence area are main determinants of happiness, implying that further urbanization, which is expected to occur in the future, will positively affect people’s happiness if it can bring about an increase in generativity. These results also suggest a possibility that people are happier by being more generative for sustainability, and some new institutional framework such as future design shall be recommended to enhance generativity.

“…Second, government investments may also be needed to build skills for partnering. This may include specialized training institutions [46,97], professional representatives for unrepresented groups or groups difficult to represent, e.g., future generations [111][112][113][114][115], or monitoring systems for evaluating partnering capacities and identifying deficiencies. These investments may be particularly important to ensure effective transformation partnerships.…”

Section: Policy Tools To Orchestrate Missing Partnershipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Approach to Partnerships for SDG Transformations

Horan

2019

104

Recent scientific reports highlight the urgent need for transformations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and long-term sustainability. This paper presents a new approach to partnerships that focuses on their role in transformations, the types of partnerships that may be needed and their enabling environment. It introduces transformation effectiveness as a criterion to evaluate a portfolio of partnerships and pathways as a tool to frame discussion of required partnerships. Guided by energy decarbonization and using a simple model of partnership formation, I highlight a (potential) mismatch between the types of partnerships required for transformation and the partnership types arising under the currently dominant voluntary approach. The model suggests the bottom-up approach can deliver some, but not all, of the partnerships needed. Five specific problems are identified—compensation for losers, partnering capacity, short-time horizons, inadequate coordination mechanisms and misaligned incentives. The paper then outlines some policy tools—transfers, regulation, public investment—governments could use to strengthen the bottom-up framework and orchestrate missing partnerships. The conclusion addresses two problems specific to the transformation approach: how to identify more systematically the partnerships needed (identification problem) and how to implement them (implementation problem); and outlines some ways to deal with these—science, deliberation, international leadership coalitions and frameworks/monitoring systems for transition partnerships.