This is a study which should be read, and acted upon, by all politicians. People, not surprisingly, want things to get better.
Scientists Find Visions of a Benevolent Future Society Motivate Reform
ERIC W. DOLAN – The Raw Story
Activists, take note: People support reform if they believe the changes will enhance the future character of society, according to a study published online this month in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Namely, people support a future society that fosters the development of warm and moral individuals.
‘There are implications for communication, but also for policies themselves. The ‘easy’ answer would be to promote a policy or cause in terms of how it will make people more warm/moral,” Paul G. Bain of the University of Queensland, the lead author of the study, explained to Raw Story via email. ‘But I think for this to really work it needs to be authentic/real and not just rhetoric – the policies themselves need to promote this.”
Bain, along with four colleagues, sought to explore Noam Chomsky’s dictum that ‘social action must be animated by a vision of a future society” – a proposition they said had not been investigated by social psychologists.
