Abstract for the Conference (final version):
"The Discovery of the Future in the Human and Social Sciences: Changing science from a primarily past-oriented effort to a primarily future-oriented effort"
6-8 June 2024, Department of Sociology and Social Sciences, University of Trento
Efficacy: Rethinking Futures Methodologies, Paradigms and Discourses Beyond Performative, End-point Futures
Efficacy Theory: Beyond The "Performative" Future
The field of futures studies has increasingly been concerned with understanding the cognitive processes involved in futures thinking (Øverland, 2013), especially imagination and anticipation (e.g., Adam, Poli, Facer, van Lente), and their relations to agency. However, with rare exceptions (e.g., Appadurai, 2013 through Poli, 2017; Park, 2017), little is known in futures scholarship on the interactions between people's social arrangements, futures thinking and agency. In which ways might people’s situated arrangements and realities interact with what they think about the future, how might this in turn influence their agency, and what knowledge can we gain from that for futures practice and theory?
Well known in futures research and practice is that visions of the future can exert a significant influence on individuals' agency in the present (Bell & Mau, 1971, Beckert, 2016, Adam & Groves, 2011, Selin, 2008). Often referred to as the "performativity" of the future over the present (see Oomen et al., 2022 for an overview), this social mechanism serves as a reminder that “[p]rediction is a social happening” (Popper, 1957) culminating in the familiar self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton, 1948, Hedström & Swedberg, 1998).
Much overlooked in futures scholarship, however, is that this very influence of the future on agency is actually mediated by perceptions of personal efficacy, the latter which influence in turn how one thinks about the future (Bandura, 1999). In other words, futures thinking and agency influence each other reciprocally through the mediating effects of efficacy, which operate bidirectionally (Bandura, 1997, 1999).
Efficacy Both Influences And Is Influenced By Futures Thinking And Agency
The most foundational mechanism of human agency (Bandura, 1997, 1999), “[p]erceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1997: 2-3, italics in original). Neither an expression of intention, nor of self-esteem, perceived efficacy is a judgment of personal capacity formed through sociocultural, environmental, and personal circumstances (Bandura, 1997, 1999). Self-efficacy affects how people think about the future as well as their agency, motivation and outcome expectations (Bandura, 1999). Reversely, (mental) representations of the future influence people's agency through their mediating influence on people’s sense of self and collective efficacy.
Efficacy is a core dimension of futures thinking. To the extent that we don't conceive futures in abstraction, divorced from what they mean to us and from our capacity to act upon them, efficacy is part and parcel of futures thinking. The reverse is true. Futures thinking also is a core dimension of efficacy. Evaluating one’s own capacity to act best in the future indeed necessarily involves drawing futures “conjectures” in the words of Jouvenel, at different times and geographies.
Efficacy, A Productive Framework For Investigating The Relations Between Futures Thinking And Agency
Despite these visible interdependencies, little is known in futures research regarding the fundamental role that efficacy plays in shaping futures thinking and attitudes towards the future, if we take as evidence the limited literature available in top futures journals (with a few exceptions such as Park, 2017, Rizzo & Chaoyun, 2017). This knowledge gap is all the more regrettable as efficacy theory offers in my view a productive framework for rethinking some of the methodologies, paradigms and discourses of futures practice and research.
This contribution therefore sets out to explore the potential of efficacy theory as a productive framework for investigating situated futures thinking in relation to agency, through the situated, relational paradigm of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1999). I explore the contribution of efficacy theory to reconceptualising the so-called performativity of the future, using as a case study a series of efficacy studies about climate and sustainable futures. I then conclude with an emerging framework for efficacy's capacity to transform methodologies, paradigms and discourses of futures practice and research.
Efficacy In Climate And Sustainable Futures: A Case Study
Efficacy beliefs have been widely recognized to enhance pro-environmental behaviors (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009, O'Neill et al., 2013, Milfont, 2012, Leviston et al., 2014, Bostrom et al., 2019, Hamann & Reese, 2020). I thus use here various efficacy studies of climate and sustainable futures as case studies to examine how collective efficacy beliefs are operationalized in climate and sustainability discourses. In doing so, I show how efficacy theory can contribute to reconceptualising a performative future that is otherwise unidirectional and authoritative. Only efficacy, not the performative future, can explain why the same vision of the future can elicit very different responses.
While climate modelling projections can reduce people’s efficacy responses (Shi et al., 2015), they can also enhance personal efficacy, notably through increasing groups' identity and collective efficacy (Bandura, 2000, Fritsche et al., 2018, Innocenti et al., 2023). Interestingly, exposing people to desirable – in this case, sustainable – futures does not necessarily lead to mobilisation, as people may not take action if they do not believe such futures are achievable (i.e. low perceived efficacy) (Bandura, 1997, Shi et al., 2015, 1999, Cotton et al., 2016).
Conversely, perceived low efficacy is also a cause of contrasted responses to future climate scenarios, ranging from feelings of helplessness, indifference or denial, to mobilisation or eco-anxiety (Doherty & Clayton, 2011). Similarly, perceived high efficacy is recognized to foster pro-environmental behaviors but has also been shown to downplay risk perceptions by minimizing climate associated risks (Maltby et al., 2021).
Thus, not the performative future but only efficacy can explain why individuals may or may not mobilise in the face of pessimistic climate scenarios and why they may or may not take action on more desirable, sustainable futures – nuancing some of the work and methodologies relating to positive futures.
Sometimes, it is not the lack of available positive futures, or personal morality, that generate an apparent lack of commitment to climate action, but rather the fact that people feel helpless – i.e. inefficacious – about the perceived wicked problem of climate change.
Rethinking Futures Methodologies, Paradigms And Discourses With Efficacy
Based on the above, I offer three observations on how efficacy theory can help rethink some of the methodologies, paradigms and discourses of futures practice and research.
First observation: The situated nature of efficacy tempers the calls for positive – or for that matter, pessimistic – futures that ambition to uniformly enhance everyone's efficacy. Stepping back from these injunctions can produce futures exercises that are less judgmental of different levels of efficacy and thus more inclusive of the diverse sociostructural and personal circumstances that shape perceptions of efficacy (Bandura, 1997, 1999).
Second observation: Examining how efficacy beliefs are operationalised in discourses on climate and sustainable futures can be very useful precisely for troubling and transforming (i.e. reframing) efficacy beliefs. Doing so requires uncovering people’s assumptions about collective efficacy understood as assumptions about human nature and collective action. Once these assumptions are revealed, a more transformative view (reframing) of collective human action within its environment can be articulated as a foundation for developing sustainable future scenarios.
Third and final observation: Efficacy’s incremental progression through subgoals (Bandura, 1997, 1999) challenges foresight's almost exclusive use of end-point target futures to the detriment of more process-based futures. Indeed, individuals and groups can adopt either a goal- or a process-oriented future attitude, as shown for instance in life course studies (Biesta & Tedder, 2007) or social movements theory (Haines, 1996 cited by Benford & Snow, 2000: 617).
According to this view, foresight practice may benefit from placing greater emphasis on processes by devising of social, governance and institutional practices and arrangements by which collective efficacy and inclusive and sustainable change may thrive. In this way, one can aim to counter what Bandura (1997: 520) identifies as “underminers of collective efficacy” such as bureaucracy, social fragmentation or aspects of globalisation, to name but a few.
In this view, efficacy theory advocates for a foresight practice that recognizes the value of social, institutional, and governance processes and practices, embracing a paradigm of futures as anticipation for emergence (Poli, 2017, Miller, 2018) – or "futures as processes in the making" as I like to call them – over futures considered as end-point objectives.
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