Impact of Future Design on Workshop Participants’ Time Preferences

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of Future Design (FD) on public workshops organized in Matsumoto city, Japan, for its city hall renovation plan. We ran an FD workshop and an ordinary workshop as a control, and the participants were randomly assigned to one of the two workshops. We identified the SVO (social value orientation) type (pro-social, pro-self, and other) and elicited time preference of each participant using simple questionnaires that were independent of the context of the workshops. We found that pro-self individuals tend to have shorter time perspectives than pro-social individuals before the workshops. While the pro-self individuals who went through the ordinary workshop became even more myopic, we did not detect such adverse effects in the FD workshop. This contrast between the ordinary and FD workshops is consistent with the qualitative differences in the policy outcomes between the two workshops. The discussions in the ordinary workshop tended to focus on the resolution of today’s needs, such as acquiring more rooms and more services, etc., while the discussions in the FD workshop focused on the more fundamental functions of the city hall that will be needed in the future, thereby leading to more constructive policy proposals. Such demand-based discussions in the ordinary workshop may have been a result of the growing myopia within the pro-self participants, who insisted on ensuring their current needs.

Characteristics That Influence Individuals’ Intentions to Use and Bequeath Common Assets: Time-Perspective Scales and Demographic Attributes

“…A few previous studies showed that these demographic attributes had several influences on intergenerational choices, although these studies examined limited populations, such as university students. On the one hand, Nishimura et al [20] showed that younger participants in their Future Design workshop tended to be influenced by a treatment that considered an imaginary future generation in paired discussions, whereas they were not influenced by this consideration without the treatment. Shahrier et al [36] and Timilsina et al [37], who studied ISDG with Bangladeshi and Nepalese participants, respectively, showed that rural people tended to choose sustainable options more frequently than urban people did.…”

“…Nakagawa [19] conducted an in-depth transcriptional analysis of a series of Future Design workshops and demonstrated four factors influencing the perspectives of the workshop participants: (a) discounting the present generation's costs, (b) contrasting the future with the present, (c) deconstructing the hierarchy (i.e., disengaging from current norms and structure in which people are embedded), and (d) intellectual joy. In another study on the effect of public workshops on city hall renovation, Nishimura et al [20] contrasted an ordinary workshop and a Future Design workshop. They found that the Future Design workshop mitigated the pro-self attributes of participants (i.e., egoistic or seeking to increase gains of the current generation, thereby tending not to allocate gains to future generations) and prevented them from becoming more myopic regarding their demands.…”

Future Design: Bequeathing Sustainable Natural Environments and Sustainable Societies to Future Generations

“…A three-day workshop for local government workers was held in November 2017 in Matsumoto, the Nagano Prefecture (Nishimura et al [73]), to discuss how to work out a basic concept for the new city hall due to be rebuilt. That was followed by a two-day workshop for the general public (January/February 2018).…”

“…Nishimura et al [73] administered questionnaires on discount rates before and after the events. No change was found for the current generation group.…”