The Plausibility of Future Scenarios

What does plausibility mean in relation to scenario planning and how do users of scenarios assess it? Despite the concept's ubiquity, its epistemological and empirical foundation remain unexplored in previous research.
Ricarda Schmidt-Scheele offers an interdisciplinary perspective: she presents approaches from philosophy of sciences, cognitive psychology, narrative theory, and linguistics, and tests key hypotheses in an experimental study. A conceptual map lays out indicators for scenario plausibility and explains how plausibility assessments vary across scenario methods. This helps researchers and practitioners to better understand the implications of their methodological choices in scenario development.

Ricarda Schmidt-Scheele is a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Interdisciplinary Risk and Innovation Studies (ZIRIUS), University of Stuttgart. Her research areas are scenarios and foresight methods in the context of energy transformation processes and sustainability. She also works as a facilitator at the Oxford Scenarios Programme at Said Business School, University of Oxford.