At TCC we specialise in social research and behaviour change. This is your guide to what we’ve been reading.
Hello and welcome to The Weekly – the collapsing soufflé in this Great British Nudge Off.
This week we reveal why men are attracted to non-conformist women, and explain why there’s a 22/1 chance someone in front of you in the Starbucks queue shares your birthday. Plus we explore why politicians don’t fear failure, and show the gentrification-forecasting heat map. And of course, there’s Charlie’s Attic – the last Pound Shop on the hipster high street.
Behaviour Change ~ Why smart people have bad judgement
Polls, Policies and Politics ~ Take the “Blair or Cameron” quote quiz
Health Hub ~ Read the rulebook on hover boards
Values Lab ~ See what a Pioneer wedding might look like
Charlie’s Attic ~ The new ‘coffee joint Vs chicken shop’ gentrification heat map
Intellect and good judgement; are they the same thing? A new article says perhaps not, arguing that smart people form as many poor opinions and misjudgements as less clever people, but are able to rationalise and justify them better. That sounds like a cynical, quasi-neoliberal/ subterranean Trotskyite effort by the nudge industry to undermine thinking people, destabilise academia, and ‘other’ the intelligentsia to us. But anyway.
On a similar note, the Economist asks why people don’t learn from mistakes and Daniel Dennett offers tips on how to think like a philosopher. Or perhaps you’d prefer to think like a statistician, in which case the first step is to understand why there’s a 22/1 chance that someone in the Starbucks queue shares your birthday.
And finally, if you thought your FOMO was a product of social media (and were busy envying people of the previous generation who didn’t have this problem to contend with), then take heart: apparently fear of missing out is as old as time itself.
Meanwhile, TCC’s very own “top boffin” Nick Pecorelli featured in the Sun this week, and said Labour needed to woo their readers. But, better news for Corbynistas is that Labour’s membership has increased by more than the size of the whole membership of the Tories (if you are a new party member here’s a simple guide to getting involved). Why do they hate being called radicals, though? TB never minded! Why isn’t Corbyn scared of failing? And psephologists, put your clipboards down: Corbyn’s victory can be explained in one word: “love”.
Quilliam produced two excellent pieces of work this week. The first is a quantitative assessment of IS’s propaganda narratives. The second is a new campaign, #betterfuture, which aims to build a broader civil society free from extremism, and is a call to action.
The political situation may feel like the ‘80s, but when it comes to technology we really are living in tomorrow’s world, meaning one of the big questions of the day is “Hoverboards? Do they belong on the road or the pavement?”
EastEnders’ new transgender character has brought ‘transgenderphobia’ to the fore this week. But, with homophobia still rife, who will be the hardest group to convince? We thought we’d put a values spin on this question, by asking how tolerant of homosexuality the three tribes are.
Pioneer
Prospector
Settler
Very strongly agree that “Homosexuality should be accepted by society”
53%
36%
33%
The question asked people to give the statement “Homosexuality should be accepted by society” a mark out of six for how strongly they agreed. The table above shows those giving the statement a six (meaning they agreed as strongly as possible). It shows that Pioneers are far and away the most sexually liberal – although the parity between Prospectors and the traditionally more socially conservative Settlers is something of a surprise.
Also this week, read about the Pioneer bride who, as an off-duty paramedic, helped victims of a crash on her wedding day.
And finally this week, Charlie’s Attic, the nudge capsule that’s always the bridesmaid: