Belief in a Favorable Future
Belief in a favorable future is a concept in psychology stating that people tend to believe that future others’ preferences and beliefs will change to align with their own. That is, people who hold a view (e.g., support President Trump) are more likely than those who hold the opposing view (e.g., oppose President Trump) to believe that, in the future, others will share their view. The concept was first proposed by Todd Rogers, Don A. Moore, and Michael I. Norton (2017).[1]
Background[edit]
Belief in a favorable future (BFF) draws on prior research on forecasting and naive realism. Forecasting is the idea that people believe themselves to be better at predicting future events than they really are, and that they tend to be optimistic about their futures.[2][3] BFF is a distinct form of optimism about the social world.
Naive realism is the tendency for people to believe that they perceive things objectively and that those who disagree are irrational or uninformed.[4] As a consequence, people tend to project their beliefs and preferences onto others, sometimes called the false-consensus effect (FCE). [5][6][7][8] Rogers, Moore, and Norton (2017)[1] find that BFF is larger in magnitude than FCE for two reasons:
- Social projection tends to be larger when others’ beliefs cannot be directly observed, and by definition, future others’ beliefs are not directly observable.
- People tend to believe that their current views are the most accurate and true, and are thus likely to believe that disagreeing others will have time to “discover” the truth and change their beliefs between now and the future.
Research[edit]
Rogers, Moore, and Norton (2017) show across six studies that people hold a belief in a favorable future, and that this belief affects behavior. They showed that BFF exists for people’s views on politics, entertainment, consumer products, and science. They also demonstrated that BFF exists across cultures, is greatest when people consider their views to be based on objective facts as opposed to subjective tastes, and affects both policy preferences and actions. These findings have real-world consequences. In one study involving political donations (N>600,000), Rogers, Moore, and Norton found that a belief in a favorable future influenced people’s willingness to donate to a political candidate.[1] Based on real polling data in 2014 gubernatorial election, participants in this study were told that their preferred candidate was either winning (BFF) or losing (non-BFF) in the polls. Participants who were told that their candidate was ahead in the polls were less likely to donate to his campaign. This shows that believing the future will be favorable can discourage people from taking action that could increase the chance that the favorable future actually will arise.
Practical Significance[edit]
One implication of the BFF is that it may reduce people’s motivation to take costly actions to bring about change in the future. Consistent with this, Bain, Hornsey, Bongiorno, Kashima, and Crimston (2013) showed that changing people’s beliefs about what will happen in the future can change their likelihood of taking action today.[9]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Template:"The Belief in a Favorable Future". Retrieved 2018-05-23.
- ↑ Tetlock, Philip (2005). "Expert Political Judgment: How good is it? How can we know?". Princeton University Press.
- ↑ Gilovich, Thomas; Kerr, Margaret; Medvec, Victoria Husted (1993-04-01). "Effect of Temporal Perspective on Subjective Confidence". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 64 (4): 552–560. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.64.4.552. ISSN 0022-3514. PMID 8473976.
- ↑ Ross, Lee; Ward, Andrew (1996-01-01). Naive Realism: Implications for Social Conflict and Misunderstanding. pp. 103–135.
- ↑ "PsycNET". psycnet.apa.org. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
- ↑ Monin, Benoît; Norton, Michael I. (2003-5). "Perceptions of a Fluid Consensus: Uniqueness Bias, False Consensus, False Polarization, and Pluralistic Ignorance in a Water Conservation Crisis". Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. 29 (5): 559–567. doi:10.1177/0146167203029005001. ISSN 0146-1672. PMID 15272990. Check date values in: |date= (help)
- ↑ "The "False Consensus Effect": An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 13 (3): 279–301. 1977-05-01. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(77)90049-X. ISSN 0022-1031.
- ↑ Robbins, Jordan; Krueger, Joachim (2005). "Social Projection to Ingroups and Outgroups: A Review and Meta-Analysis". Personality and Social Psychology Review.
- ↑ Bain, Paul; Hornsey, Matthew. "Collective Futures: How Projections About the Future of Society Are Related to Actions and Attitudes Supporting Social Change". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
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