Premium
Greens or space invaders: Prominent utopian themes and effects on social change motivation
Author(s) -
Fernando Julian W.,
O'Brien Léan V.,
Burden Nicholas J.,
Judge Madeline,
Kashima Yoshihisa
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2607
Subject(s) - utopia , psychology , social psychology , action (physics) , perception , space (punctuation) , philosophy , political science , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , law
Abstract One way in which individuals can participate in action to change the society they live in is through the pursuit of an ideal society or “utopia”; however, the content of that utopia is a likely determinant of its motivational impact. Here we examined two predominant prototypes of utopia derived from previous research and theory—the Green and Sci‐Fi utopias. When participants were primed with either of these utopias, the Green utopia was perceived to entail a range of other positive characteristics (e.g., warmth, positive emotions) and—provided it was positively evaluated—tended to elicit both motivation and behaviour for social change. In contrast, the Sci‐Fi utopia was associated with low motivation, even when it was positively evaluated. Furthermore, the Green utopia was shown to elicit greater perceptions of participative efficacy, which in turn predicted the increase in social change motivation.