Plausibility designs, or a probabilistic and predictive take on scenario effectiveness

Abstract

Plausibility is often defined in direct contrast with probability. A common stance is that plausibility is a good ally of specifically social scientific studies of the future. A recent version of this claim is that scenario effectiveness is the result of plausibility ascription, not of the scenario narratives themselves, however, but of the “co-conversation” between the builders and users of scenarios. In this approach, probability falls out as redundant. Interestingly, this has striking similarities with recent probabilistic developments in cognitive literary studies. This approach claims that our judgments of the “effectiveness” of a literary text are dependent upon both the workings of our probabilistic, predictive minds during the reading process, and the “ease” with which we do such predictions. In this approach, however, there is little room for plausibility. In this paper, I argue that these two perspectives can be combined into a synthetic approach, which views the plausibility of a scenario co-conversation as an outcome of the “ease” with which scenario users “read” the scenario texts based on the workings of their probabilistic minds. Not only is this in line with recent results in cognitive science. It also holds promise of relieving the current tension between plausibility and probability in futures studies.