ABSTRACT
The current shaping of research and health policies for those with dementia is strongly influenced by social imageries and future scenarios. In my contribution, I examine in-depth how such anticipations are used by main stakeholders in politics and patient advocates as narrative arguments for justifying policies. By comparing US and German patient advocates’ shaping of dementia research policy, I also reflect on the cultural embedding of such anticipations. Moreover, I turn to the moral-psychological question how anticipations are shaping individual decision making and then critically discuss why negative anticipations provide a critical factor in our long-term decision making. This contributes to a normative critique of one-sided, biased imaginations and worst case scenarios in the social sphere.
