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:
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Hello and welcome to the TCC Weekly – the Friday bulletin for people who know their drill from their brill.
This week we look at the curious link between political leaning and occupation, in our Politics section. Plus we explore why some voters don’t mind Trump’s corruption, and take a look at trust and leadership in the Values Lab. And of course, there’s the socio-political chancer that is Charlie’s Attic – this week bringing you the link between economics and a Thomas The Tank Engine.
David Evans
Director
Ideals versus job
We were fascinated by this recent US study of occupation and political leaning. The findings, shown in the visualisation below, are fascinating. Some are predictable – stereotypical, even. Others – like Hedgefunders – definitely don’t conform to type.
The findings overlap with another study out this week, which suggests that people’s identities evolve to fit their politics. It reveals that “substantial numbers of Americans change how they identify over this span along the lines of national origin, sexual orientation, religion, and class.” The same perhaps goes for career…
The effect of both studies is to blur the line between ideals and day-to-day lives, proving that everything is, in some sense, political.
Recent allegations of corruption towards Donald Trump seem to have done little to change the minds of his supporters. For liberals scratching their heads, two recent studies are of interest. The first, written up here in the Scientific American, points that dishonesty can still be perceived as authentic – if you identify with the individual telling lies. The second, meanwhile – which can be found in The Atlantic – looks at corruption, explaining how two individuals can have different views of corruption. For some, corruption is about breaking rules, for others, it’s about polluting a pure idea of nationhood: Trump is seen as draining a polluted swamp, so the fact he breaks the rules to do so can be overlooked.
In the complicated relationship between politics and trust, this shows the role that identification plays. Trust is inextricably tied to how we feel. Turn to Pillar K – p.48 – of our New Conversations guide to see how this relates to the challenges of local government.
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 leadership
Sticking to the topic of trust, we thought we’d put leadership in the lab this week, with three questions about attitudes to politicians.
% who strongly agree that
Pioneers
Prospectors
Settlers
Politicians don’t care what people like me think
43.8%
43.8%
62.7%
Politicians pretty quickly lose touch with the people who voted for them
56.5%
45.7%
67.5%
I like politicians who stick to their positions
22.0%
32.3%
31.4%
The findings are interesting – although not especially surprising. They show that Settlers are far and away the most disillusioned about their ability to have a voice. They also, alongside Prospectors, show an appetite for strong leaders who know their minds. (Pioneers, by contrast, appear to value a more deliberative political style – although they’re also, interestingly, more prone to cynicism about politicians losing touch). Were Trump to be transported across the pond it seems likely that Settlers would be the values group holding up his poll rating.
And finally this week, Charlie’s Attic, the e-bulletin afterthought which flip-flops between the weighty and the flighty:
