Projecting the unacceptable: Negative anticipation as an experiential resource for student engagement in higher education
This study demonstrates how an immersive induction program using dystopian scenarios at a French business school leverages negative anticipation to transform undesirable future projections into tangible, collaborative experiences that foster student engagement and institutional belonging.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
The Time-Traveling Warning System
Imagine you are standing at a crossroads, trying to decide which path to take. Usually, we make these choices by looking at a map of a beautiful, sunny destination we hope to reach. We get excited, we pack our bags, and we start walking because the future looks fun. This is how most of us think about the future: it's a reward waiting for us. But what if the map showed a future that was scary, messy, and totally ruined? Would that stop you from walking, or would it make you run faster to fix the road right now?
This question sits at the heart of a fascinating corner of science called experiential marketing. Think of this field as the study of how we "feel" about things, not just how we buy them. It treats our lives like a movie that plays out over time: we have a "pre-movie" phase where we get excited (anticipation), the "movie" itself (the experience), and the "post-movie" phase where we talk about it with friends (memory). For a long time, scientists thought the "pre-movie" part was only about dreaming up happy endings. But this research asks a wild question: Can a scary, "what-if" story about a terrible future actually be a powerful tool to get people to care and act today?
The paper also leans on a concept called design fiction. Imagine if you could build a fake newspaper, a fake TV news report, or a fake app from the year 2050. These aren't just stories; they are physical objects that make a made-up future feel real, like a prop in a movie that you can touch. When you combine these fake-but-real-looking objects with the idea of a "bad future," you get a unique way to make people feel the weight of their choices before the choices even happen.
The "Bad Future" Experiment
So, what did the researchers actually do? They set up a giant, immersive game for over 200 university students in Corsica, France. Instead of the usual boring "welcome to college" lecture, they dropped the students into twelve different "dystopian" scenarios. These were like mini-movies of a future that had gone wrong.
Picture this: One group saw a fake news report saying that because of pollution and too many tourists, you could no longer just walk onto the beach. You had to book a time slot on an app, and if you didn't, you couldn't swim. Another group saw a fake newspaper article about a world where artificial intelligence had taken over jobs and created massive discrimination. These weren't just scary stories; they were presented as if they were real news from the near future, complete with fake TV clips, articles, and charts.
The students were told: "This is what happens if we do nothing. Now, you have 90 minutes to fix it." They were split into groups, mixed with local nonprofit workers, and had to come up with a plan to stop this bad future from happening. They made videos, gave speeches, and even signed a big "Manifesto" promising to be responsible citizens.
What They Found: The Power of the "Yikes" Moment
The researchers found that this "scary future" approach worked in three surprising ways.
1. The "Touchable" Nightmare
First, the fake news reports and apps did something magic. They turned a vague worry about "climate change" or "pollution" into something you could see and touch. One student said, "When you have a tangible object right in front of you... it stimulates the imagination even more." It wasn't just a lecture; it was a simulation. The students knew it was fake, but because it looked so real, they started thinking, "If we don't act now, this could actually happen." The scary future became a tool to make the present feel urgent.
2. From Panic to Teamwork
Second, the fear didn't make everyone freeze up or run away. Instead, it made them work together. Because they only had 90 minutes to solve the problem, they had to stop panicking and start planning. They had to talk to each other, divide the work, and build a solution as a team. One student called it "team building." The bad future acted like a shared enemy that forced everyone to collaborate. Even the local nonprofit workers helped ground the crazy scenarios in real life, showing the students that these problems were actually happening right now in their own towns.
3. Feeling Like You Belong
Finally, and perhaps most surprisingly, this scary experience made the students feel like they belonged to their university. Usually, new students feel a bit lost. But by fighting a common "bad future" together, they felt connected to each other and to the school's values. Signing that big manifesto wasn't just a piece of paper; it was a symbol that said, "We are a team, and we care about this place." Six months later, students still remembered the day and felt that it had helped them become part of the university family.
The Big Takeaway
The authors suggest that we have been looking at the future all wrong. We usually think that to get people excited, we need to show them a shiny, happy tomorrow. But this study suggests that showing people a plausible, terrible tomorrow might be just as powerful. It's not about scaring them into paralysis; it's about using that "yikes" feeling to spark a "let's fix this" energy.
By using fake news and fake apps to make a bad future feel real, the university turned a scary idea into a fun, collaborative game. The result? Students didn't just learn about responsibility; they felt it, worked together to solve it, and felt more connected to their school because of it. It's a reminder that sometimes, the best way to build a better future is to imagine the worst one first, and then roll up your sleeves to stop it from ever happening.
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