Future Thinking: Predicting Social Attitudes from Collective Futures

Abstract

Marijuana and abortion are two current social issues with potential for great societal consequence, not only in terms of life changing impact upon the individual, but upon wider society as a whole. Therefore attitudes toward the complete legalisation of these issues within Australia should be of great interest, i.e. what determines or influences a person's stance to these issues, and why? Previous research has established four main predictors of attitudes toward social issues; emotional reactions, religious identity, political orientation, and moral conviction. The current research seeks to determine what impact collective futures will have in predicting attitudes, i.e. dimensions of personality and societal change, and whether these dimensions contribute to attitudes on these issues in addition to these other predictors. One-hundred and thirty-six students from the University of Queensland completed an online survey assessing attitudes towards the legalisation of abortion or marijuana in Australia, together with measures identifying the bases for these views and the likely consequences for society into the future. This study found that collective futures significantly predicted attitudes towards the legalisation of marijuana and abortion. Specifically, dimensions of character enhancement and character demoralization predicted marijuana attitudes, whereas character enhancement and social issues predicted abortion attitudes. Furthermore, collective futures significantly predicted legalising marijuana attitudes after all other predictors had been taken into account. This research introduces the important role collective futures can play in predicting attitudes towards policies on current issues that have considerable impact upon society