Future Design as a Metacognitive Intervention for Presentism

Abstract

Many serious problems occur due to conflicts between the interests of the present generation and the welfare of future generations, and thus, the actions of the preset generation may be a consequence of presentism. Drawing on the theoretical framework of metacognition, the present study investigates how presentism can be overcome through future design interventions that incorporate an imaginary future generation setting. Four workshop participants were interviewed, and transcripts of the interviews were made. There were two major findings. First, we identified narratives in the responses of participants that suggest that metacognition was active during the workshops concerning the two cognitions governed by present and future selves. Second, the narratives identified above were classified into two categories, and the two corresponding roles of metacognition were identified: the monitoring and controlling function and the harmonizing function. The former is essential for the acquisition of identity as a future person; the latter is essential for reconciling this future identity with the identity of the person in the present. The present study proposes that future design is a tool that can be used to intervene in the metacognition of individuals concerning how one chooses a temporal reference point from which to view the past, present, and future of society rather than a tool to naively motivate individuals to care for future generations.

1. Introduction

Many serious problems currently threaten global sustainability, including climate change, environmental degradation, and national debt. These problems arise from conflicts between the interests of the present generation and the welfare of future generations, and thus, the actions of the present generation may be explained as a consequence of presentism, which is defined as the tendency to generate a bias within established laws and policies that have the potential to negatively affect future generations [1,2].

In order to overcome presentism within contemporary democratic systems, various attempts have been made to consider how the voices of future generations can be incorporated into current institutional decision making. A number of authors discussed the possibility of representing the interests of future generations through legislative measures [3,4,5]. Adachi [6] classified the institutionalization of the concerns of future generations into eight categories, including constitutional provisions for protecting the future generations’ well-being [7], transferring the authority of some nation states to regional or global bodies [8], and creating an independent governmental agency to review all regulations expected to significantly impact future generations and oversee coordination among existing agencies [9].

In line with these studies, future design, a branch of future studies, has proposed a framework for conceptualizing the imaginary future generation [10,11]. Under this framework, individuals take on the role of members of an imaginary future generation and engage in designing strategies that can be adopted by the present generation. This design procedure can incorporate negotiation between the imaginary future generation and other participants who represent the perspective of the present generation in order to build intergenerational consensus. Concerned that the market and democratic institutions will continue to selfishly consume the resources of future generations, economist Tatsuyoshi Saijo proposed this framework as an alternative mechanism that can incorporate the interests and concerns of future generations in policymaking. Thus, while the framework of the imaginary future generation can be narrowly understood as a technique for operating workshops at organizations in order to create visions for the future, it should also be seen as a concept relevant to stakeholders who make various decisions in market-oriented democratic societies. A growing number of municipalities are utilizing this framework to hold workshops to generate visions for the future by inviting citizens to participate in workshops or organizing them in the municipalities’ administrations (e.g., references [12,13]).

However, there is limited research on the subjective experience of individuals of the present generation taking on the role of members of a future generation. Previous studies confirm that the framework of the imaginary future generation encourages individuals to view sustainable policies more favorably despite inconveniences to the present generation [14,15,16]. However, it is important to answer the question of how identities of the present and future generations, which likely conflict with one another, can coexist in a single individual. The present qualitative study aims to answer this question.

As the issue of practical, real-life, institutional representation of future generations’ voices remains unresolved, answering this question is more urgent than ever. In fact, drawing on case studies of institutions representing future generations in six countries and regions, Jones, O’Brien, and Ryan [17] (p. 158) concluded, “Institutions which are given too much power, too early in their lifespan, tend to face rejection from politicians.” These cases clearly show how introducing representatives of the future generation into the contemporary political system induces intra-generational conflict and fails to attain its intended goals. Thus, institutional attempts to represent future generations must be accompanied by the attempts of each stakeholder (e.g., politicians and voters) to overcome their own biases related to presentism. Drawing on the theoretical framework of metacognition, the present study suggests a path forward in order to achieve this ultimate goal.

2. Theoretical Framework

Metacognition refers to higher-level cognition (i.e., a mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses) of targeting cognitions at the object level [18]. Metacognition has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention partly because it is essential for school children and adults to learn effectively. According to a review by Veenman et al. [19], the most common distinction in metacognition is between metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills. The former refers to a person’s declarative knowledge about the interactions between a person, task, and strategy characteristics [20], while the latter refers to a person’s procedural knowledge for regulating problem-solving and learning activities [21].

Procedural metacognition, the latter type of metacognition, includes the processes of metacognitive monitoring (i.e., subjective assessments of ongoing cognitive activities), and metacognitive control (i.e., the regulation of current cognitive activities) [18,22]. According to Roebers [23], monitoring includes questions such as “How much effort do I have to put into learning this material?”; “Did I sufficiently learn this material to remember the details later on?”; and “How sure am I that this answer is correct?” Controlling includes actions such as selecting material for review while studying, differentially allocating study time to learning material, and withdrawing answers or terminating a memory search.

The present study utilizes the concept of metacognition to understand how individuals encountering the perspectives of the future generation reconcile their present identities and the identities of future generations, which may conflict with one another. Therefore, our research objective is defined as follows:

Objective 1:

To confirm if metacognition is activated in order to target cognitions operated by present selves and selves of future generations.

Objective 2:

To investigate the function (or role) of this metacognition.

Considering the above-mentioned previous studies on metacognition that monitor and control other (i.e., lower-level) cognitions, it is hypothesized that a person activates his or her metacognition to monitor and control another form of cognition by considering questions such as, “Am I adopting (or should I adopt) the perspective of the present or the future generation when thinking about the state of society of 2050?” When one adopts the perspective of the present generation, one is looking 30 years into the future and imagining what technologies will be available and what future people will be thinking about, etc. On the other hand, when one adopts the perspective of the future generation, one is absorbed in the world he or she is imagining, similar to how someone becomes absorbed in a story world while reading a novel. Moreover, when adopting the perspective of a future generation, it is possible to either lament or appreciate specific actions taken by the present generation, such as responses to COVID-19 or CO₂ emission reduction efforts. (Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the present generation may be even more motivated to adopt this perspective, as the COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive changes to the social structure. As such, people are now more sensitive to the fact that actions taken by the present generation will have serious consequence for the future generation.) This is similar to how the present generation assesses the actions of past generations (see earlier studies on retrospective assessment [24]). Thus, for Objective 1, we expect a positive answer, and for Objective 2, we expect that monitoring and controlling will be the main functions of metacognition. This will be qualitatively verified.

3. Materials and Methods

The present study is based on interviews conducted with four citizens who participated in future design workshops organized by two municipalities in Japan: Yahaba Town (Iwate Prefecture, Japan) and Uji City (Kyoto Prefecture, Japan).

Yahaba Town in Iwate Prefecture has a population of about 28,000. The town is located about a 20–30 min drive away from Morioka City, which has a population nearly 10 times larger than Yahaba Town. Therefore, many Yahaba residents work in Morioka City. Yahaba Town Hall held a series of unique workshops in order to craft a long-term vision for the town. The workshops were designed to have local citizens act as future residents of the town and consider what steps the town should take in order to realize a vision for the future. Two citizens who participated in these workshops, Mikiko and Miki (anonyms), agreed to participate in the interview survey. They are both females and were in their 40s at the time of the interviews. The interviews were conducted six months after the series of workshops was completed. For more details on the procedure and the outcomes of the workshops, see Hara et al. [12].

Uji City is located in the southern part of Kyoto Prefecture and has a population of 180,000. It is famous for its cultural properties, such as Byodoin Temple, which is a World Heritage Site, and Uji Tea. Many tourists visit this city on weekends. The city had been developed as a residential area since 1960, and the population has increased rapidly for some time; however, since 2000, the population has been declining. In addition, the percentage of the population aged 65 and over is expected to increase at a pace exceeding the national average. In response, Uji City Hall started developing a workshop as an unusual strategy for making local residents think about the future of the community. Two residents who participated in these workshops, Yumi and Satoshi (anonyms), agreed to be interviewed. Yumi is a female who was in her 30s at the time of the interview, and Satoshi is a male who was in his 60s at the time of the interview. The interviews were conducted 12 months after the series of workshops finished.

In both workshops, participants were divided into groups consisting of approximately four members each. Both groups of workshop participants were asked to imagine that they had time-traveled to the future and were living there at their current ages. Participants in the Yahaba Town workshop were asked to imagine would their town would be like in 40 years; residents of Uji City were asked to imagine what their city would be like in 30 years. Then, in Yahaba Town, the participants were requested to give a general description of the town in this imagined future. In Uji City, the participants were requested to describe the state of the local communities of the future city they were asked to imagine. In both municipalities, a staff member facilitated each group discussion, and the objectives agreed were used to create a narrative of the future. In each group, participants sometimes made contradictory assumptions about the external environment surrounding the municipalities (e.g., socio-demographics). While participants tended to try to achieve a consensus, there was no guarantee that they perfectly shared assumptions. Even so, they were able to share the hope that a specific future world could be realized. This expectation seemed consistent with the organizational studies literature stating that the vision of an organization should be something that is not only “viewed as desirable by employees” but also “is unlikely to be changed by market or technology changes” [25].

The request that participants imagine themselves as living in the future at their current ages is important for the following reason. Future Design is intended to resolve intergenerational problems, and thus is primarily concerned with how to resolve conflicts between present individuals and other individuals in the future, rather than resolving conflicts between the same individuals who have aged into the future. Time-traveling 40 years into the future on the presumption that one will also age 40 years allows one to keep his or her current identity, which is undesirable for the purpose of this study. However, imagining time-traveling while remaining the same is a good (even if not perfect) and easily implementable simulation that allows one to feel absorbed in the future that will be inhabited by future generations. In fact, Miki explicitly mentioned in the interview how this constraint helped her to succeed in taking the perspective of the future generation. (See the sixth paragraph of Appendix B as well as the results section where this statement is cited.)

In interviews, the participants were requested to talk about (i) why they decided to participate in the workshops, (ii) how they and their group members managed to adopt the perspective of the future generation, and (iii) how the workshop experience influenced their lives. The interviews lasted 1–2 h. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed. The transcription amounted to 129 pages in total. The transcription was analyzed with reference to the theoretical framework introduced in Section 2. Specifically, interviewees’ statements were reviewed one by one and checked for interviewees’ adoption of metacognition. Then, the statements identified were classified into groups, and the functions of metacognition were considered for each group. The narratives of the four participants are summarized in story form in Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C and Appendix D, respectively.

4. Results

In the transcriptions of the four interviews, two functions of metacognition were identified, and they will be individually described below.

4.1. Monitoring and Controlling Function

As expected, the monitoring and controlling function of metacognition was identified. During the workshops, Miki carefully considered whether she was successful in adopting the perspective of the future generation, rather than maintaining her perspective as a member of the present generation. In the excerpt below, she describes her experience of imagining what it would be like to time travel to the future with her age unchanged, as requested by the organizer of the workshop (See the sixth paragraph of Appendix B).

Miki: Well, I started imagining the future as if I lived there as an 80-year-old female and thought about what future would interest me. I gradually began imagining that I was living there at the age I am now. This was probably because I felt it was a pity that such an interesting future would be realized only after I got so old.

This statement suggests that her metacognition is monitoring the process of cognition on the level of the object (i.e., the cognition as the present self or the cognition at the future self) and controlling herself so that the cognition of the future self becomes dominant. Additionally, in addition to her, the other group members also performed monitoring and controlling. In fact, soon after the start of the discussion, one of the elderly members began to express his opinion, stating “I will be dead by then…” However, once he began immersing himself in this future world and envisioning it more vividly, he did not repeat this remark. The next excerpt from Yumi shows that she was also monitoring her cognition at the object level.

Yumi: During the workshops, I was always questioning myself as to whether I was successful in playing the role as purely a member of the future generation or not. I was concerned that I was simply expressing my selfish ideas as a member of the present generation, pretending that I was doing so from the perspective of the future generation.

This monitoring process allowed her to arrive at the understanding of what it was like to play the role of a member of the future generation, as shown in the eighth paragraph of Appendix C. This monitoring and controlling function of metacognition was also observable in Satoshi’s case, as shown in the following excerpt.

Interviewer: Please tell me the story of what happened after the series of workshops was over.

Satoshi: Yes. The series of four workshops ended. What I thought was that at the end of the series of workshops I at last came to understand what it was like to be a member of the future generation, and the ending of the workshops meant that I would sooner or later lose this sense of understanding and return to what I used to be before I got familiar with the idea.

In saying so, Satoshi compares the cognitions of his present and future selves and prioritizes the latter (in his monitoring process). Indeed, he decided to participate in a citizen network as a founding member in order to provide himself with opportunities to activate the cognition of the future self (in his controlling process). The network consists of nearly 20 citizens who participated in the workshops and has the aim of considering the future of the city from the perspective of the future generation.

4.2. Harmonizing Function

Another function of metacognition that was identified is the harmonization of object level cognitions. If a member of the present generation successfully experiences adopting the perspective of the future generation, but then reassumes his or her identity as a member of the present generation, he or she momentarily experiences the coexistence of two potentially conflicting identities. Such conflict cannot be avoided, especially when one is inclined to support actions that will come to fruition in the immediate future. However, Mikiko’s narrative illustrates how these identities can be harmonized. We demonstrate that metacognition has the function of harmonizing these two identities (and thus the cognitions associated with the perspectives of the present and future generations). See the last paragraph of Appendix A for the context of the excerpt.

Interviewer: Now that the series of workshops is over, you have gone back to living your everyday life. Do you think about things as a member of the present generation, or do you recall the experiences of workshops when thinking about actions taken by the present generation?

Mikiko: Well, that is a difficult question to answer. After all, we succeeded in absorbing ourselves in a world 40 years in the future, and that is why I sometimes say to myself, “this should be done right now, otherwise it will be too late.” This feeling springs up from me as a member of the present generation.

This statement suggests that there was an interplay between the cognition governed by the self as a member of the present generation, and the cognition governed by the self as a member of the future generation. It also suggests that Mikiko was aware that the two cognitions were consistent with one another (i.e., the state described as the future generation and the actions to be implemented by the present generation are connected by a means-end relationship), and thus, there is metacognition enabling the perception that the two cognitions are in harmony with one another. This function of metacognition is also confirmed in the following excerpt from Satoshi. This statement also illustrates how the two cognitions are perceived as existing in harmony.

Satoshi: Some may argue that what the future should be like should be the choice of the future generation. However, there may not be time for that. Without taking action now, it may be impossible to realize a desirable future.

It should be noted that linking the two cognitions by the means–end relationship is not the only way to harmonize these cognitions. Yumi discovered a consistency between the two cognitions in a unique way: not by identifying the means-end relationship, but by identifying an essential similarity between the two cognitions (see the eighth paragraph of Appendix C). Yumi is well aware that the cognitions of present and future selves may well reach different conclusions with regard to what should be (have been) done in the present. According to her belief, this is because we, as the present generation, are bound by conventional thinking, which prevents us from realizing what we really want to do. She also believes that taking the perspective of the future generation frees us from such conventional thinking, and thus, there is no contradiction between cognitions by present and future selves.

5. Discussion

Considering the interview responses discussed above, our answers to the two research questions referred to in the research objectives section are summarized as follows:

Concerning the first objective, we identified narratives in participants’ interview responses that suggest that metacognition was active in the two cognitions at the object level governed by the present and future selves. Concerning the second objective, the narratives identified above were classified into two categories, and two corresponding roles of metacognition were identified: the monitoring and controlling function and the harmonizing function. The former is essential for the acquisition of an identity as a future person, and the latter is essential for reconciling the identity of a future person with the identity of a present person. Figure 1 and Figure 2 illustrate these two functions. Both of these figures illustrate a pair of two selves (i.e., present and future selves), as well as the third self-overviewing the two. The difference between these figures lies in the role of the third self. Specifically, an individual wishing to take the perspective of the future generation was concerned about whether they were successful in doing so, and thus the third self in Figure 1 monitored and controlled the transition process between the two selves. In contrast, once the individual experienced a successful transition, a new concern arose for the third self about whether the two selves were in harmony rather than contradicting one another.

There are several important things to note about these findings. First, the narratives demonstrate that the monitoring and controlling function of metacognition derived mainly from workshop participants’ experiences during the Future Design workshops. In these workshops, participants were requested to activate an unusual cognition process by adopting the perspective of the future generation. Therefore, participants must monitor and control themselves in order to successfully adopt this perspective. Previous scholarship has recognized both the difficulty and importance of disengaging from the present in future studies workshops [26]. The present study adds to academic scholarship on this issue by demonstrating that transition from a present to future perspective is perceived by participants to be a discrete rather than continuous process and can only be achieved through careful monitoring and controlling. As this is not an easy task, it is inevitable that some participants are better at performing this task than others. However, very few earlier studies have paid attention to how this differs among individuals. With the findings of the present study in mind, future studies should investigate whether the ability to disengage from the present is associated with general metacognitive competence and skills (e.g., references [27,28,29,30]). Indeed, it is of practical importance for workshop organizers to understand participants’ individual characteristics and, when possible, place participants who have relatively low competence of disengaging from the present in groups with people of higher competence, so that the latter can assist the former by leading discussions.

Second, in spite of potential conflicts of interest between present and future generations, as well as the difficulty of motivating the present generation to care for future generations [31], the present study found that the perspectives of the present and future generations can coexist on account of the harmonizing function of metacognition. Furthermore, it was found that this function can be executed in two different ways: either by defining the means-end relationship (i.e., between actions to be done by the present self and the state of the society in which the future self will live) or by identifying an essential similarity in spite of the apparent contradiction. This metacognition serves as a bridge between present and future selves. Therefore, metacognition is expected to contribute to one’s sense of coherence [32,33] and thus one’s life satisfaction.

Third, while the monitoring and controlling function of metacognition was active mainly during exposure to intervention (i.e., during the workshops where individuals are requested to take the perspective of the future generation), the harmonizing function of metacognition seemed to be active for a much longer period of time. In fact, Mikiko and Satoshi were interviewed six and 12 months, respectively, after the series of workshops finished, and even at that time, they still felt a sense of coherence, as demonstrated in the excerpts. In the future, researchers must quantitatively investigate the durability of these Future Design intervention. Answering this question will help determine whether Future Design is a viable and promising framework for realizing a sustainable society.

To conclude, regardless of the intentions of the organizers of the Future Design workshops in Yahaba Town and Uji City, the workshops can be viewed as interventions that triggered metacognition processes in the four participants, forcing them to consciously consider from what reference point in time they should evaluate the past, present, and future of society. Considered alongside the empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of adopting the future reference point for engendering positive attitudes toward sustainable thinking [15,16], it would be beneficial for future research to consider how the metacognition of our four research participants can be replicated among citizens of contemporary society. Indeed, this would be preferable to naively questioning how many members of society as possible can be motivated to care about future generations. The former question seems to be less difficult to answer than the latter, because adoption of this form of metacognition is accompanied by a sense of coherence, which is an essential component of life satisfaction.

The present study had an important limitation. This qualitative study was based on interview surveys with four people only; therefore, in the future, it will be important to check the generalizability of the findings either by enlarging the sample size or by designing and implementing a questionnaire survey.