Institute for Futures Studies

Elite education fosters elite alumni. Earlier studies indicate that peer networks formed during higher education are essential to elite socialization, and that such peer networks form early on during the course of education. Moreover, the composition of such peer networks can be highly consequential, impacting long-term career outcomes such as pay and position.

In this research, Anna Tyllström and colleagues study how students’ early peer socialization plays out during the first months of elite business education. Drawing on structured interviews with students entering high-ranking bachelor programs in business studies, they find that the first few weeks, or days even, at university seem essential to students’ social integration, and identify four stereotypical socialization tactics, i.e. strategies that constitute separate sets of behavior and thoughts about social life, placed on a continuum between academic and social focus. They also find these tactics to be heavily gendered: while male respondents are over-represented in groups applying super-strategizing and loning tactics, female students tend to crowd in the middle categories of balancing and swotting, working hard to balance academic and social expectations during the first intense months of higher education.

As this is a work in progress, spanning several social science disciplines, Anna Tyllström and colleagues presented the work at the seminar to brainstorm together with audeince around the potential relevance of these findings, and also around framing and outlet.

Recorded at the Institute for Futures Studies in November 2024.

Research seminar with Rainer Forst, Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at the Department of Political Science and Department of Philosophy, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main. His work in moral and political philosophy focuses on questions of justification, justice and toleration.

This paper challenges widespread assumptions in trust research according to which “thick” forms of trust emerge in homogeneous communities, or which regard trust and conflict as opposing terms or where trust is generally seen as a value. The paper suggests a distinction between a general (non-normative) concept and various normative conceptions of trust, depending on context. With regard to the justification of trust, a distinction between particular and full justification is introduced, and the justification of trust is linked to relations of justification between trusters and trusted. Finally, trust in conflicts emerges where such relations exist among the parties of a conflict, often by way of institutional mediation. 

Research seminar recorded at the Institute for Futures Studies in december 2024.

This paper will explore key findings drawn from Emily Jones' monograph, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830-1914: An Intellectual History (OUP, 2017) and her forthcoming book, One Nation: The Disraeli Myth and the Making of a Conservative Tradition (Princeton). In particular, she discusses how, by taking a generously conceived ‘reception history’ methodological approach to the history of modern political ideologies, we can locate significant moments in the ‘when’ and ‘how’ in their construction, but gain insights into both the historical contingency and relational nature of political ideologies, as well as the significant role that history and historical reconstruction had in the invention and reinvention of conservatism for much of its history.Emily Jones, Lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Manchester.

This research seminar was recorded at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm in April 2025.

How should experts behave when communicating with non-experts? In this talk Joe Roussos presents a paper on the science-policy interface, with a focus on communication between scientists and policymakers. The central question of the paper is: should experts communicate strategically, with an eye to the policy outcomes they think are best, or should they rather be open and honest? The paper centers on the cases of climate change and covid-19, high-stakes situations in which there is a significant demand for science advice. Joe Roussos frame the discussion around a provocative 2018 paper by Stephen John, titled “Epistemic trust and the ethics of science communication: against transparency, openness, sincerity and honesty”, and argue in favor of a specific form of honesty (about scientific uncertainty) and against some forms of openness or transparency, although not for strategic reasons.

Joe Roussos, researcher in philosophy at the Institute for Futures Studies. He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics, with a thesis entitled Policymaking under scientific uncertainty. He often works on issues related to scientific modelling, or using the results of models, and focuses largely on climate science.#LSE #philosophy #sciencecommunication

Recorded at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, Sweden, February 2025.

In this talk Åsa Wikforss, professor of practical philosophy, discusses the rationality of “bad beliefs”, as defined in Levy (2021): Beliefs that go against easily available expert consensus. Such beliefs may be an expression of knowledge resistance, in which case they are irrational. According to Levy, however, these beliefs are typically rational. That philosophers have assumed them to be irrational, he suggests, is simply a reflection of a much too narrow conception of the relevant evidence. I argue that Levy’s attempt to rescue bad beliefs from being irrational fails, and that there are reasons to think that in the central cases bad beliefs tend to be irrational. However, Levy’s reasoning highlights an important detection challenge when it comes to studying knowledge resistance in the wild: A bad belief may be the result of knowledge resistance but it may also be perfectly rational given the subject’s prior beliefs. The challenge has consequences for the standard experiments on motivated cognition, as carried out by Kahan and colleagues, suggesting a confound in the experimental design. Preliminary data from new experiments carried out by a team from the RJ program on knowledge resistance suggest the confound is very real.This recording is from a research seminar held at the Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, Sweden in March 2025.

Åsa Wikforss, professor of theoretical philosophy at Stockholm University and member of the Swedish Academy. Her research involves topics such as the philosophy of language, the nature of belief, and consciousness.

Moderator: Gustaf Arrhenius.

Research seminars are held at the institute most Wednesdays and are open to the public.