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 compromise cake from their geek pie.
This week we’ve got the latest in behaviour change for education, and a lesson in dodging questions that doesn’t just apply to politicians. We’ve also got the Values take on financial organisation as the cash machine turns 50, and the ultimate empathy test.
As always, we see out the week with a visit to the room that’s equal parts empathetic and anaesthetic, Charlie’s Attic. This week it contains Theresa May and the Holy Grail, and the Potterverse’s impact on our political outlook.
David Evans
Director
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Do kids need a nudge for a good education?
Last week saw the publication of the Nudge Unit’s newest ‘how to’, a practical guide to behavioural insights for education, for parents, teachers and school leaders. The guide emphasises the need for those close to children to help nudge kids to make positive progress in their education and school life, noting rightly that policy dictated from Parliament of the DoE won’t trickle down to benefit students without the right support from those around them.
There are a range of tools and activities for the different groups of influencers to use to implement simple behaviour change techniques with youngsters, focussed on what they say and do rather than the structural factors we tend to hear about such as class sizes and school budgets.
At TCC we’ve been working on the tricky task of behaviour change with young people in Medway, where we’ve been helping the Council to promote its healthy weight services. Using a mixture of tailored behavioural approaches and Values Modes insight, we’ve been working with parents and children, developing messaging backing up interventions that appeal to their core motivations. The Tri For You programme is now being rolled out more widely after a successful pilot.
Image taken from original source
Also this week:
A cautionary tale from the Economist for politicians who compromise on their convictions
How do you respond when someone stares at you? It could have a lot to do with how powerful you feel
A study from Ohio State University’s David Clementson has surfaced in light of some of the more evasive interview responses seen in the election, suggesting that politicians who dodge questions, by changing the subject or giving the classic ‘no comment’ response, made them less trustworthy. Bad news then for ‘slippery’ candidates.
If you’re trying to engage or consult, trustworthiness needs to be earned, so transparency is a vital ingredient in any such exercise. Not being open with those you’re trying to engage can make you seem like you’re trying to hide something, and trust goes out the window.
A positive example of transparency done right can be found on page 64 of the New Conversations guide. Anger at the response of the authorities to a murder in Thamesmead meant bridges had to be rebuilt, and trust re-established. Among the key elements of the council-led response was transparency – bringing the biggest critics into the fold to work with authorities to establish what had happened, and sharing recordings of 999 calls and emergency service interaction with residents. This brave approach helped to establish better relationships with residents, and other services and agencies, and shows what can be achieved through transparent engagement.
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 financial disorganisation
Would you believe the cash machine turned 50 this week? It’s hard to imagine life without the convenient hole in the wall these days, so to celebrate its half-centenary, here are 50 facts about the ATM.
But does easy access to our money make it harder to keep an eye on what we’re spending? And who among us are the most disorganised when it comes to our financial affairs? We splashed the cash on some new designer lab coats, and headed down the Values Lab to find out.
It’s a little surprising to see the highest levels of financial disorganisation, not in the more ‘carefree’ zones of Pioneers and socially liberal Prospectors towards the bottom of the map, but in the top left, where rules and order tend to be more important. The big indicator here though is that the purple blotch of strongest agreement sits just to the Prospector side of the Settler border – the willingness to overspend to obtain symbols of value and achievement is one of the key characteristics that set the socially conservative Prospector apart from their more rules and security driven Settler neighbours.
