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 counter castles from their coercion castles.
This week we look, in our Values Lab, at the topic of gloom. With Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year, recently passing, we wondered which values segments are most prone to pessimism.
And of course, we aim to cheer you up at least a little bit in Charlie’s Attic. Today’s Attic focuses on a different type of ‘blue’, with a list of the UK’s rudest place names.
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.
We recently saw the passing of Blue Monday. Made famous by the New Order song, this is said to be the most depressing day of the year – as Sky News and the Evening Standard explained.
But which of the three values tribes is most prone to feelings of pessimism and despair? Today’s lab is less light-hearted than usual, analysing agreement with the statement ‘I have little to expect from the future’.
The findings show that this feeling is strongest among Settlers, with Pioneers and Prospectors significantly more optimistic. Nearly a quarter of Settlers fall into the two strongest bands of agreement. They are much more likely, these findings suggest, to be hit by January blues.
Society is increasingly able to recognise the value of well-being, and social prescribing has become more common across the NHS. But the stark differences revealed above suggest that more needs to be done to connect with the hard-to-reach social groups who feel least positive.
And finally this week, Charlie’s Attic, the part of the bulletin you grin and bear each Friday:
Ponder the link between school exclusions and crime.
