How people think about the future 1 – how beliefs form actions, or non-actions!

“The only thing that can save us as a species is seeing how we’re not thinking about future generations in the way we live.” Erik Erikson

 In my academic past-life I was doing some research on how people perceive the future might be.  My logic was that based on a person’s worldview, their mental projections of what lay in store in the future would be a motivator, or not, for how they behaved towards changing the  world.   I did this simple couple of questions (as part of a larger study) on hundreds of students in my classes over several years.  It also helped me as a lecturer to gauge my students’ mindsets and to focus a more positive message to them about sustainable living.  I meant to publish it eventually, but as I have said in earlier posts, sometimes it is just more hassle then is worth the effort to convince journal editors and peer reviewers that it should be published.  My logic was that my findings would be useful in helping educators communicate their messages differently based on the worldview of a future.  For the comments received back from journals, it seems that the educational mode is more preferred in dealing with an ‘everyone’ audience than trying to understand how to focus the message more succinctly – my communicator background obviously tuned in here.

Like most things in life, what you focus on and how you focus upon it, sets the tone for how you believe and act.  It frames your choices and your thinking.  I have given this is past pots (e.g. why we stay in the rut).  What you believe is often sacrosanct – and often your view of what the future holds maps your future focus for you.  It will also influence what information you accept and what you readily reject.  Your beliefs also affect how you feel you control your actions and can influence the actions of others, and whether you feel empowered enough to do so.  One factor used in determining how we feel about our empowerment is a concept called Locus of Control (LOC).  While there are only two main categories, when I lecture about them I show them to be two continuums within each category.

An INTERNAL LOC is where a person feels “I control my situation.”  People with an internal LOC believe their actions can make a difference because they have internalized control of their actions.  They only account for about 5% of a population based on any specific issue, but they tend to be information seekers.  They action in reference to their beliefs although such action is not legally mandated.  They do what they think is a ‘proper action’ in relation  to their beliefs.  An EXTERNAL LOC is where a person feels as though “THEY control my situations” and I cannot make a difference.  This is a disempowering perception of lack of control.  External LOCs on the end of the continuum close to the Interrnal LOCs either do not have the necessary information to take action or do not believe their actions will make a difference. Many just require motivating or training in action skills to become internals.  Others, especially on the opposite end of the continuum need to be convinced of the importance of their role and be clearly shown that they can facilitate change.  Their belief barrier is that ‘Powerful Others’ are perceived as having control.  Whether this is real or imagined is unimportant since their perception through the disempowering belief make them apathetic and unlikely to act.  Now think about how people think about the future and their potential to shape that future is crucial in getting such a future to happen.  Since I am blogging about Sustainable Living then I am interested in what will it take to get people to act for that kind of future.

Once you see my categories in the next post you should see why I thought that messaging the four categories differently would be useful.  The three questions for part of the study I did were:

1) What are your views of the future of the environment in the next 25 years? 

2) IWhat are your views of the future of the environment in the next hundred (100) years? 

And

3) Why do you think that way for each of the answers? 

Before looking further at the next post that explains what I found, how do you think about the future?  Now look at your answer and how see how it fits what I found and will post next time?