It has become cliche to observe that we are living in “unprecedented times.” Existential threats—climate collapse, skyrocketing wealth inequality, genocide—are ubiquitous, and are made constantly accessible through social media, its algorithms portraying each event as more catastrophic than the last. At the same time, people are also constantly reminded that they must act normally, that the world is conducting business as usual, and that the status quo need not be changed. This contradiction—everything is falling apart, and everything is fine—creates anxiety (i.e., dissonance) that results in compensatory reinvestment in individual mundane activities, and disinvestment in collective action needed to better the world. Integrating materialist economic perspectives with theories of compensatory cognition from social, political, and existential psychology, we theorize that the subjective experience of daily life amidst a slow-motion political and societal collapse a) induces a desperate reinvestment in the individual and b) demotivates collective action. Through the lens of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1962), we also predict that, paradoxically, these effects will grow stronger as existential threats become more salient, as this individualistic turn inward represents an attempt to resolve this contradiction. Crucially, we frame existential threat and its subsequent individualistic reinvestment as a mechanism that exacerbates inequality and, more broadly, reactionary political attitudes and behaviors, by incentivizing behaviors such as resource hoarding and social climbing instead of communal behaviors such as mutual aid and direct collective political action. Through this lens, we seek to apply theory to better understand—in order to radically change—the psychological attitudes and political behaviors of everyday people amidst a bleak political reality that is increasingly rife with contradictions.

The current socio-ecological crisis requires a fundamental change of our lifestyles – a key aspect is the transition from a private car centred mobility to more sustainable ways of transport. Nevertheless, the car is still at the centre of our world. Although this is the case due to an inherent infrastructural dependency, from a psychological perspective the affective and symbolic car dependency is a core interest. How can we understand the subjects’ relation to the car and their resistance to alternative modes of transportation? Therefore, we have to note that the affective-symbolic aspects of the car are closely linked to social conditions of production and distribution.

On the one hand the car represents the promise of social advancement and symbolizes wealth. Its affective-symbolic significance is closely linked to socio-economic status and the idea of individual social achievement. On the other hand, the car represents the domination of nature. It provides an option to express unconscious feelings such as aggression and disappointment that are structurally produced within the capitalist mode of production. The car can alleviate one's own experience of precariousness and/or powerlessness, e.g. by fantazising about owning an exceptional car one day or by driving by endangering others.

In our presentation we outline these affective-symbolic aspects of the car from an affect-theoretical and psychoanalytic social psychological perspective. We illustrate this theoretical discussion using the example of in-depth hermeneutical interpretations of two advertising videos for electric vehicles.

This proposal presents a case for developing a metatheory of social justice within social psychology that activates and raises our consciousness beyond the ascribed realms of oppression and demeaning power relations. Focusing on India's sociopolitical realities, it reflects on broader theoretical frameworks that shape and transform the everyday consciousness of people. Theory, in this view, is not merely a logical arrangement of variables explaining mechanisms; it is a living, political act that redefines its own stance on neutrality and purpose. Whose agenda a theory advances is itself a moral and political question. Most theories in social psychology describe mechanisms or propose limited solutions, yet few critically engage with the conditions of oppression that structure social life. This work argues that theory-building in times of systemic violence and injustice must move beyond Western epistemologies and engage with democratic sensibilities and sensemaking. Drawing from the humanism of Erich Fromm and B. R. Ambedkar, this work is grounded in radical humanism, one that honours the agency of all beings through relationships of love, care, and mutual recognition. Such a framework reimagines theory as a force of social transformation and as an act of resistance, expanding the ethical and political horizons of social psychology.