Shaping ideal futures: Writing a letter to the future

Schippers, Michaéla C.; Jong, Elisabeth de; Rus, Diana; Rommers, Huib

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4372540

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Life-crafting, for example, may be a potentially useful narrative intervention, which involves having participants write about their best possible self in different areas of their lives, such as values, goals, and their envisioned future social life and career (Schippers and Ziegler, 2019). More recently, Schippers et al (2023) offered a variation of life-crafting focused on writing about a best possible world, by imagining how changes to the world might improve peoples' lives.…”

Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal processes among humility, social justice activism, transcendence, and well-being

Jankowski,

Sandage,

Wang

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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IntroductionExisting research shows positive associations between humility and well-being, and between civic engagement and well-being. Rarely have humility, civic engagement, and well-being been examined together. We build off of previous cross-sectional findings and a prior longitudinal study that used three waves of data and found significant positive bivariate correlations between humility and the presence of life purpose across time points.MethodsExtending these previous findings, we used six waves of data obtained from graduate students at 18 seminaries across North America (N = 574; Mage = 31.54; 46.7% female; 65.3% White) to explore the dynamic associations among humility and life purpose, along with horizontal transcendence (an indicator of the attitudinal dimension of civic engagement) and social justice activism (an indicator for the behavioral dimension). We explored reciprocal short-run processes and dynamic long-run effects using a general cross-lagged panel model.Results and discussionWe found robust evidence for a reciprocal influence between the presence of life purpose and horizontal transcendence, and long-run effects for initial levels of life purpose to influence later levels of horizontal transcendence. We also found long-run effects for the influence of initial levels of life purpose on later levels of humility, and initial levels of social justice activism on later levels of horizontal transcendence. Implications center on the use of the findings for planning future one-time life purpose and social justice interventions to affect changes in humility and horizontal transcendence.

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Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal processes among humility, social justice activism, transcendence, and well-being

Jankowski,

Sandage,

Wang

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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“…Governments should take individual and societal well-being as a spearhead for decision-making in the upcoming years ( Frijters et al, 2020 ). Hopefully, with effective interventions, the tide can be turned and a positive spiral can be induced (e.g., Schippers and Ziegler, 2023 ). However, while many ideas and proposals may emerge, implementing them without rigorous trials may add further waste after we have already endorsed too many failed interventions.…”

Section: Reversing the Downward Spiral: Upward Spiralmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is society caught up in a Death Spiral? Modeling societal demise and its reversal

Schippers,

Ioannidis,

Luijks

2024

Front. Sociol.

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Just like an army of ants caught in an ant mill, individuals, groups and even whole societies are sometimes caught up in a Death Spiral, a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing dysfunctional behavior characterized by continuous flawed decision making, myopic single-minded focus on one (set of) solution(s), denial, distrust, micromanagement, dogmatic thinking and learned helplessness. We propose the term Death Spiral Effect to describe this difficult-to-break downward spiral of societal decline. Specifically, in the current theory-building review we aim to: (a) more clearly define and describe the Death Spiral Effect; (b) model the downward spiral of societal decline as well as an upward spiral; (c) describe how and why individuals, groups and even society at large might be caught up in a Death Spiral; and (d) offer a positive way forward in terms of evidence-based solutions to escape the Death Spiral Effect. Management theory hints on the occurrence of this phenomenon and offers turn-around leadership as solution. On a societal level strengthening of democracy may be important. Prior research indicates that historically, two key factors trigger this type of societal decline: rising inequalities creating an upper layer of elites and a lower layer of masses; and dwindling (access to) resources. Historical key markers of societal decline are a steep increase in inequalities, government overreach, over-integration (interdependencies in networks) and a rapidly decreasing trust in institutions and resulting collapse of legitimacy. Important issues that we aim to shed light on are the behavioral underpinnings of decline, as well as the question if and how societal decline can be reversed. We explore the extension of these theories from the company/organization level to the society level, and make use of insights from both micro-, meso-, and macro-level theories (e.g., Complex Adaptive Systems and collapsology, the study of the risks of collapse of industrial civilization) to explain this process of societal demise. Our review furthermore draws on theories such as Social Safety Theory, Conservation of Resources Theory, and management theories that describe the decline and fall of groups, companies and societies, as well as offer ways to reverse this trend.

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“…In the current study, we compared writing to past-self versus writing to future-self. Research has shown that writing to one’s future-self can have a positive impact on mental health and well-being ( Chishima et al, 2021 ; Schippers et al, 2023 ). However, the mental process behind well-being achieved by writing to one’s future-self and that achieved by writing to one’s past-self might be different.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the mental process behind well-being achieved by writing to one’s future-self and that achieved by writing to one’s past-self might be different. According to ( Chishima et al, 2021 ; Schippers et al, 2023 ), writing a letter to one’s future-self can clarify what one needs to work on to achieve one’s academic and career goals. In this sense, writing a letter to one’s future-self potentially creates anxious feelings by making oneself realize what is not sufficient for now, while writing a letter to one’s past-self comforts one’s feelings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing to your past-self can make you feel better

Sugimori,

Yamaguchi,

Kusumi

2024

Front. Psychol.

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Self-compassionate writing has been shown to be helpful for improving the mental state in some individuals. Here, we investigated how the writer’s attitude toward his/her past, present and future and the focus of the writing, i.e., social experience in the past versus self-experience, modulate these effects. In Experiment 1, 150 undergraduates wrote a compassionate letter to their past-self and to their future-self and responded to the Japanese version of the Adolescent Time Inventory–Time Attitudes (ATI-TA) questionnaire. Writing to past-self decreased negative feelings more than writing to future-self. Further, participants who had negative feelings toward their past, present, and future, as assessed by the ATI-TA, were more likely to be emotionally affected by writing a letter to their past-self. In Experiment 2, 31 undergraduates wrote a letter focusing on what they had experienced together with someone, and another 31 undergraduates wrote focusing on what they had experienced alone. Focusing on a social experience was more helpful for recovering from negative feelings than focusing on a self-experience. In conclusion, writing a compassionate letter to one’s past-self can improve mood, especially in individuals with a negative time attitude who focus their writing on a social connection.

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Shaping ideal futures: Writing a letter to the future

Cited by 3 publications

References 67 publications

Longitudinal processes among humility, social justice activism, transcendence, and well-being

Longitudinal processes among humility, social justice activism, transcendence, and well-being

Is society caught up in a Death Spiral? Modeling societal demise and its reversal

Writing to your past-self can make you feel better

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