Functions of Utopia: How Utopian Thinking Motivates Societal Engagement

Abstract

Images of ideal societies, utopias, are all around us; yet, little is known of how utopian visions affect ordinary people's engagement with their societies. As goals for society, utopias may elicit processes of collective self-regulation, in which citizens are critical of, or take action to change, the societies they live in. In three studies, we investigated the psychological function of utopian thinking. In Study 1, measured utopianism was correlated with the activation of three utopian functions: change, critique, and compensation. In Study 2, primed utopian thinking consistently enhanced change and criticism intentions. Study 3 also provided evidence that mental contrasting-first imagining a utopian vision and then mentally contrasting the current society to this vision-underlies the facilitative effect of utopian thinking on societal engagement.

Imagining better societies: A social psychological framework for the study of utopian thinking and collective action

“…According to social theorists, utopian thinking can motivate criticism of the current society (criticism) and support for changing it (change), but it also may lead people to engage in a form of escapism – replacing despair with an impossible, but blissful dream, thereby compensating for the dismal reality of the status quo (compensation; e.g., see Levitas, ). Consistent with this general formulation, Fernando et al () observed that utopianism – that is, engaging in, and having a positive attitude toward utopian thinking – was positively associated with all three tendencies, namely criticism, change, and compensation. In addition, they demonstrated that priming utopian thinking decreased system justification tendencies and increased intentions to participate in social change.…”

“…There may be several reasons to conjecture that utopian thinking would reduce system justification motivation, as in the research program by Fernando et al (), through the activation of collective hope. Chief among these reasons is that people are less likely to defend and rationalize outcomes and arrangements that are perceived as changeable (vs. unchangeable; see Kay, Jimenez, & Jost, ; Laurin, Kay, & Fitzsimons, ; Laurin et al, ).…”

“…To the extent that mental abstraction produces a sharp contrast between the status quo and utopian images of society, we would hypothesize that it would also diminish the tendency to defend, bolster, and justify the existing social system (see also by Fernando et al, ). Thus, utopian thinking is likely to reduce system justification motivation not only through the affective route – consistent with work by Greenaway et al (2016) – but also through the cognitive‐motivational route.…”

Larger Than Life: Injecting Hope into the Planetary Health Paradigm

“…In addition, thinking about one's utopia and switching to thoughts concerning current society increased motivation to engage in citizenship behaviors [85]. While preliminary, this important research suggests that utopian thinking can be a critical spark in energizing transformative behaviors on large scales.…”

Greens or space invaders: Prominent utopian themes and effects on social change motivation

“…In a recent paper, Fernando et al. () showed that people who tend to engage in utopian thinking have stronger intentions to engage in citizenship behaviours for social change, and that people became more motivated to engage in social change behaviours when they were asked to imagine their own ideal society.…”