Profiles of an Ideal Society: The Utopian Visions of Ordinary People

Throughout history, people have expressed the desire for an ideal society—a utopia. These imagined societies have motivated action for social change. Recent research has demonstrated this motivational effect among ordinary people in English-speaking countries, but we know little about the specific c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cross-cultural psychology 2023-01, Vol.54 (1), p.43-60
Main Authors: Fernando, Julian W., Burden, Nicholas, Judge, Madeline, O’Brien, Léan V., Ashman, Hollis, Paladino, Angela, Kashima, Yoshihisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Borders
Convergence
Cultural differences
Social change
Utopias
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Throughout history, people have expressed the desire for an ideal society—a utopia. These imagined societies have motivated action for social change. Recent research has demonstrated this motivational effect among ordinary people in English-speaking countries, but we know little about the specific content of ordinary people’s utopian visions in different cultures. Here we report that a majority of samples from four countries—Australia, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States—converge on a small number of utopian visions: a Modern Green utopia, a Primitivist utopia, a Futurist utopia, and a Religious utopia. Although the prevalence of these utopia profiles differed across countries, there was a cross-cultural convergence in utopian visions. These shared visions may provide common ground for conversations about how to achieve a better future across cultural borders.
ISSN:0022-0221
1552-5422
DOI:10.1177/00220221221126419