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This panel explores how social movement scholarship on prefigurative politics can inform social psychologies of the future. A guiding principle in prefiguration is means-ends consistency, meaning that the ultimate goals of movement actors shape the methods they employ. Such prefigurative approaches to social change strive to create better worlds ‘in the shell of the old’ by constructing alternative institutions and modes of interaction, reflecting a given movement’s desired social transformations. Prefigurative practices can help enact solutions to present-day problems, and be used to co-create inspiring futures worth striving towards. Applying prefiguration to our own scholarship we can ask, how might our visions of a better future shape our own research methodologies and practices? Here we highlight the value of interdisciplinarity, arts-based approaches, and action research. We also explore how findings in contemplative neuroscience are shaping our notions of human potential and can inform our practices by prioritizing wellness and just relations. Lastly, we look towards cultivating a more socially engaged psychology through training the next generation of psychologists, emphasizing the crucial role played by academic psychologists in empowering future change agents. This includes exploring the role of psychologists in convoking radical imagination with communities to co-create and enact visions of alternative futures. Shifting the culture of psychology to one that more directly contributes to building a better world is a bottom-up process. Beyond ‘researching towards’ a better world, through prefiguration, psychologists can be active participants in its creation.

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We anticipate a future characterized by migration and diversity within and between societies. Migration and diversity will be intertwined with climate change in complex ways, which requires social change and large scale collaboration. How do we prepare for such a future? Our answer is creating educational arenas for social and cultural psychology where students acquire knowledge and skills to act as practitioners and researchers in the future.