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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This week our politics section explores the strange stigma around the word ‘Socialist’ in US politics. And our Engagement Hub flags our cohesion event, Original Thinking, next month. Our Values Lab looks, in the light of vertigo-inducing footage from the 1970s, at health and safety and the role of government. And of course, there’s Charlie’s Attic, where bird’s eye view meets worms eye view.
It’s hard reading for anyone with an egalitarian bent, and shows why US politics is such a strange beast. But perhaps what’s most striking is the way that ‘socialist’ towers above the other categories – showing both how US politics has stigmatised the word. Even for socially conservative Republicans, this question of whether someone is a socialist is the ultimate deal breaker – trumping race, faith, sexuality or gender.
On the topic of US politics, we were also interested, this week, in research looking at the correlation between eating meat and voting patterns. Apparently, those who don’t eat meat are far more likely to be liberal – perhaps unsurprisingly. We wonder where ‘Vegetarian’ would come on the list below!
Original thinking
This week’s Engagement Hub is a shameless plug, we’re afraid. Next month – October 19th – the LGA are hosting Original Thinking, a day-long event on cohesion, migration, and understanding communities. It’s free for councils so get yourself along! Click here for details and bookings.
The event showcases new insight into diversity, migration and change, and includes a keynote speech from Trevor Phillips, former Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and co-founder of our partner organisation, Webber Phillips. There will be workshops in the afternoon explaining how councils can engage with their communities on different types of issues around cohesion and change.
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 vertigo
BBC Archive recently tweeted this vertigo-inducing 1979 clip from Steeplejack. Footage like this (not to mention this ionic Blue Peter clip from 1977) makes you realise how much health and safety has changed. Perhaps red tape isn’t all bad, if it means we’re no longer scaling Nelson’s Column without a harness!
In this light, we thought we’d look at health and safety and other forms of red tape imposed for us citizens’ own good, looking at agreement with two opposing statements.
% who ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that
Pioneers
Prospectors
Settlers
“It’s not the government’s job to protect people from themselves”
18.0%
14.8%
20.3%
“Sometimes laws to protect people from themselves are necessary”
30.1%
37.1%
33.8%
The result of this demonstrates that Settler agreement with the first statement is highest. This is perhaps unsurprising, given Settlers’ nostalgic for a simpler, freer time, but what’s more surprising is the number of Settlers who agree with the opposing statement.
Meanwhile, the story with Pioneers is curious, too. They’re more likely to agree with the first statement than Prospectors – and significantly less likely to agree with the second statement. This suggests a stronger libertarian streak in Pioneers than we often appreciate.
Overall, however, the most surprising thing was that the latter statement generally got more agreement than the former one – which went against what we’d been expecting.
And finally this week, Charlie’s Attic, where red tape meets tickertape parade:
