A visual narrative for taking future generations’ perspectives

Abstract

Intergenerational problems occur when current generations choose actions that benefit them, without fully considering future generations’ needs. This study posits that the public has a general tendency to serve as the proxy of future generations willingly, and aims to develop a visual narrative intervention measure to accelerate this willingness. The narrative was created based on an interview survey with a participant in a Future Design workshop as an “imaginary future generation.” Next, a laboratory experiment was designed using this visual narrative as an intervention tool, to assess the impact of this intervention on the experimental subjects’ political preferences and their concerns for future generations. A total of 186 subjects chose their most preferred option among four options prevalent in the life of the present generation, before and after the exposure to this intervention. The exposure to this visual narrative significantly changed the participants’ preferences as the proxies for future generations. After this intervention, the subjects wished that the present generation had chosen sustainable options more different from the status quo so that future generations would not experience regret from inaction (i.e., the regret of not having performed certain actions in the present), indicating that the intervention was effective in acquiring the perspective of future generations. This study demonstrates that individuals in the present generation can be motivated to take the perspective of those in future generations.