We are delighted to welcome Professor Emerita Helen Haste, a leading international scholar in psychology, political psychology and civic engagement, to deliver a guest lecture for University of Bath staff and students on uncertainty.
We hope you will join us for this thought‑provoking session and take part in an important conversation about how we can respond creatively, critically and constructively to the challenges of the future.
This event is open to all staff and students at the University of Bath. There is no need to pre-register, just turn up.
Talk: Doomsday and the seductions of certainty
Professor Haste's talk is titled 'Doomsday and the seductions of certainty: failing to manage a radically ambiguous future.'
We predict the future badly, so we do not prepare for it well.
Recent global and social events have ruptured our faith in progressive, manageable change over which we have control. They have forced us to recognise profound and radical uncertainty about the future. They have revealed how we make less than rational decisions, and how we fail to use evidence well. They have exposed how a deep fear of the unknown and the uncertain leads us to seek explanations and solutions that are simple and comforting – conspiracy theories being just one of these.
A major implication is for education as well as policy. How do we equip people – especially the young , the experts of tomorrow – to be effective in an uncertain world? How do we manage uncertainty and ambiguity productively and creatively? How do we avoid the seduction of the neat - but dangerously simplistic – solution?
About Helen Haste PhD FBPsS FAcSS FRSA
Helen Haste is Professor Emerita in Psychology at the University of Bath, UK, and was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education 2003-2018.
For five decades she has been working on the development of young peoples’ moral, civic and political beliefs, identity and behaviour, including the educational, cultural and social factors which influence these developments. She has also worked on cultural factors in science and society, including how young people regard science and technology and how this influences their choices of study and career. A strand in this work has also been the role of gender and feminist theory.
Her current work is on narratives of the future and their problems. Her work is based on a theory of culture and the individual that addresses language, rhetoric and metaphor.
She is the author or editor of eight books, over 250 scholarly papers and numerous articles for a general readership. She was co-editor of the journal Political Psychology (2010-2015) and was President of the International Society of Political Psychology in 2002. Haste was chair of the Journal of Moral Education Trust between 2007 and 2014. For many years (1977-2008) she had leadership roles in the British Association for the Advancement of Science including Vice President and Chair of Council.
Haste has held visiting appointments in Hong Kong and other Chinese universities: She has also been a visiting professor at the University of Exeter. She is a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Science, the British Psychological Society and the Royal Society of Arts. She has been a frequent contributor to broadcasting and public media.