No time like the future? Towards a generative, prospective and possibilities-focussed ‘futures social psychology’

Anticipating, considering and incorporating possible futures is a central component of human social life. Our social actions, beliefs, values and interactions are all oriented towards, or away from, various future outcomes. Yet despite this, social psychology is yet to harness its unique contribution to our understanding of the future, not addressing the challenges that many other disciplines are confronting in this emerging discipline. In this editorial, we introduce our special issue on ‘futures social psychology’, and in doing so, we provide a starting point for scholars interested in furthering research in this area. We outline previous important discipline-specific and methodological contributions, connecting social psychological perspectives to the wider academic and practitioner landscape. We outline how our eleven special issue contributions advance discussion, theorising and research methodology on topics such as sustainability, collective group continuity, prefigurative politics, AI sentience, and degrowth policies. Finally, we encourage social psychologists of all topic and methodological persuasions to adopt a generative, prospective, and possibilities-focussed approach to their work, to ensure that social psychology as a discipline can effectively meet the challenges of the future and maximise its impact.