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:
Behaviour Change ~ The nudge unit on the power of role models
Polls, Policies and Politics ~ Lakoff and Centrism – our thoughts
Values Lab ~ Values and the election - our LabourList blog
Hello and welcome to the TCC Weekly – the Friday bulletin for people who know their Tell Sid from their Talk to Frank.
This week we sit on the fence in the discussion about centrism, and our blog on Values and the election. Plus we look at the power of role models, using an example from our own animal welfare work. And of course, there’s Charlie’s Attic, the socio-psycho equivalent of finding your childhood hero passed out drunk on the kitchen floor. This week’s attic includes ‘trap streets’ and the 50 worst jokes ever.
David Evans
Director
If you see a link that belongs in The Weekly then email it to us and we’ll give you a free TCC exclamation mark to say thanks.
Role models and behaviour change
The culmination of new research by the Behavioural Insights Team earlier this month shows the vital function that role models play in encouraging younger people to go to university. The research compared exposure to inspirational talks with acceptance of places at Russel Group Universities.
The figures are not fully ‘statistically powerful’. But as the chart below indicates (taken from original source), the impact of talks – which, in the case of the study, took the form of speeches from Bristol Uni students – was noticeable.
Looking at this reminds us of work we did into young people and the training of status dogs for the RSPCA a few years back. The findings were fascinating, showing that traditional messages around public safety and animal welfare worked far less well than positive role models. Our final report ‘My Dog Ain’t No Pussy', included recommendations drawn from similar programmes in New York – training run by younger people with experience handling animals (often ex-offenders).
Is 'centrism' a thing?
This week saw discussions of ‘centrism’, the catalyst being James Chapman, with his proposal of a ‘centrist’ party called The Democrats. Columnists have weighed in to claim, variously, that ‘centrism’ is small-C conservativism, that it’s ‘neoliberalism’ and that it’s about being in touch with the public. The most common technique is to start by saying ‘centrism’ doesn’t exist, the expend several thousand words attacking it.
This got us thinking about one of our favourite political psychologists George Lakoff, who – speaking about US politics – writes: “There are moderates, but there is…no single ideology that all moderates agree on. A moderate conservative has some progressive positions on issues, though they vary from person to person. Similarly, a moderate progressive has some conservative positions on issues, again varying from person to person. In short, moderates have both political moral worldviews, but mostly use one of them. Those two moral worldviews in general contradict each other.”
People may adhere to individual policies that overlap. But whatever the likes of Sadiq Khan and George Osborne – for the sake of argument – agree on they agree on for different core psychological reasons. This is perhaps the true weakness of proposals or attacks on centrism as a thing in itself. Good old-fashioned ‘centre-left’ and ‘centre-right’ make far more sense as labels.
Image below of The Democrats memorabilia, taken from here.
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 election…
TCC Director David Evans recently wrote an article for LabourList to try and put a values perspective on the election just gone. If you missed the article you can read it here – and the accompanying news write-up here.
The blog features full heat maps for both main parties at the last four general elections. Meanwhile, the specific before and after explanation of what happened in the Labour surge is displayed in the table below.
Labour late April
Tories late April
Labour June 8th
Tory June 8th
Pioneers
31%
38%
48%
31%
Prospectors
33%
48%
43%
37%
Settlers
18%
57%
35%
49%
The advances made by Labour are impressive to say the least, with gains across the three groups – even with Settlers, among whom Labour started from a very low base. The final values coalitions of the two parties, however, still show a marked values concentration for both, with Labour streets ahead among post-materialist Pioneers, but still miles behind with socially conservative Setters. This sort of values concentration is unprecedented, and the next few years will be interesting in showing who has gained or lost more by putting their eggs in one ‘values basket’ like this.
Finally this week, Charlie’s Attic, the whale in the Thames of the TCC silly season:
Consult your AtoZ having found out what a ‘trap street’ is
Raise money and show support for those affected by the disaster, by going to the #Game4Grenfell at Loftus Rd
