Envisioning Change: An Empirical Test of the Social Psychological Model of Utopian Thinking and Collective Action

Abstract

This article provides the first empirical evidence of the theoretical model by Badaan et al. (2020) that proposes social psychological mechanisms whereby utopian thinking, which activates the social imagination, could enhance collective action intentions geared toward progressive social change. We anticipated that imagining better societies via utopian thinking would (a) increase social hope, (b) promote an abstract mindset that bridges psychological distance between the status quo in the present and the imagined, better future, (c) attenuate system justification motives, and (d) enhance social change-oriented collective action intentions. Using a structural equation modeling approach, our study provides preliminary support for some postulates of the theoretical model, paving the way for future research to further disentangle the psychological mechanisms by which utopian thinking influences collective action geared toward social change.