The last decades appeared to be a relatively slow but steady rise for progressive causes (or at least one with little setbacks). Think about the tackling of taboos around mental health or discrimination, of increasing rights for different groups to express their identity and sexuality, or even the slow diminishing of traditional religion in favour of a more open, free and individualistic world. It seemed as if the sky was the limit towards a future of personal freedom. Yet…lately there is a noticeable, growing backlash against progressive social causes. 

Examples of a rising conservative sentiment are numerous: worldwide we see politicians increasingly designate ‘woke’ ideology as a threat, anti-immigration sentiments have become more mainstream and widely adopted in society, growing reach of popular influencers that preach a return to traditional gender roles (like Andrew Tate or #TradWife communities), a surprising rise in conservative values among young people in a big European study, a UN gender report showing a stagnation of progress on gender equality, several elections in Western countries that signal a shift towards populist and nationalist attitudes (often centred around anti-migration), a growing distrust against social media and technology in general in favour of more authenticity. 

It is damn near impossible to pinpoint exactly why sentiments like this are changing. Social systems and people are simply too complex and people often don’t even know why they believe the things they do themselves. Still, we defined four social developments that could explain this shift and are worth sharing: Read about our second prediction here.

At TrendsActive we monitor changing human behavior constantly. So with the new year just underway, we thought it would be interesting to select the three most significant and interesting trends that will (further) unfold in the new year and share them over the first 3 signals of this year. Here you’ll the first prediction of our Human Trends Foresight for 2024.