The Campaign Company specialises in social research and behaviour change. This is your guide to what we’ve been reading. Here’s what’s coming up this week:
Hello and welcome to the TCC Weekly – the Friday bulletin for people who know their ghost stations from their trap streets.
This week we look at Brexit and engagement, and at political leadership and values. Plus, we bring you the nudge conundrum of whether the government should pay people to quit smoking?
And of course, fulfil your Friday cravings with the socio-psychological Woodbine that is Charlie’s Attic – complete with ‘Alcatraz’ pubs and the guide to ‘centrist dads’.
Should the government pay people to stop smoking? This was the question asked in a recent article in The Conversation. It makes fascinating reading, suggesting that paying people to stop works – but that it comes with problems of its own. This includes concerns about people gaming the system or relapsing once the rewards are gone, as well as ethical issues about coercion and “rewarding bad behaviour”. The idea of paying people is perhaps the ultimate “carrot” strategy.
But if it helped people – and could be proven to save the NHS money, too – then you’d have to ask, ‘what’s the catch’? For our money, it’s not a bad idea as far as nudges go. But the last of the questions raised above – that of rewarding bad behaviour – would be the trickiest to overcome. At a time when many feel the social contract isn’t working for them personally, framing the policy in the right way would be vital, so that you didn’t end up fuelling division or creating anger among non-smokers.
Also this week:
The moral pros and cons of watching footage of mass shootings – and the impact of episodes like the Las Vegas massacre on the public’s willingness to go to events
Has the concept of ‘grit’ (that’s inner perseverance, to me and you) had its day?
Brexit preferences...
With Brexit representing one of the most acrimonious and high profile forms of public engagement the UK has ever seen – and some suggesting a second referendum is needed – we were interested to see the Constitution Unit’s citizen assembly on the topic. The results suggested a softish Brexit was the preference among participants (see the responses on migration above).
The exercise encouraged people to vote on different policy permutations, thinking through some of the repercussions and limitations of each. It shows the value of genuine consultation – and the weakness of the simplistic ‘for or against’, ‘pro-or anti’ modes of public engagement. As Pillar A (p.82) of our New Conversations kit shows, the first step is to be honest about the options that are, realistically, on the table.
Take part in the new project – with the BBC and Cambridge Uni – which aims to create a crowd-sourced solution to pandemics
Take a look at the National Audit Office’s handy guide on how local authorities work
The Values Lab is based on the Values Modes segmentation tool – created by Cultural Dynamics and used by TCC– which divides the population into ethics-driven Pioneers, aspirational Prospectors, and threat-wary Settlers. Take the test here to see which you are.
Values and the importance of leadership
With Theresa May’s conference speech re-brand turning into something of a shambles – coughing, P45s and a general sense of calamity – we thought we’d look at values and perceptions of leadership. The results below are from our 2017 post-election survey, showing how much the respective leaderships’ personality and performance influenced the different tribes.
% who say they were influenced ‘a lot’ at the 2017 election by…
Pioneers
Prospectors
Settlers
The party leaders’ personality
13%
20%
14%
The party leaders’ performance
20%
25%
19%
With May’s vulnerable side on display amid a gaffe prone hour on the podium, the answers give an insight into which groups are more likely to have been turned against May. On each question, Prospectors are around 5% higher than the other two. And the answers suggest people across all segments see performance (i.e. competence) as a bigger factor than personality – which they perhaps regard as trivial or light, even if it influences them indirectly.
The higher agreement among Prospectors is arguably because they identify with a party on the basis of the individual leading it, and what supporting that individual says about them. Settlers, by contrast, may identify with the group, while Pioneers pride themselves on identifying with the ideas and policy platform…
Also this week:
Here’s the geodemographic data on the Tory vote – very much chiming with the values change described by others – plus here’s a piece on who the Tory grass roots are
