"Money pours into our £1m fund". So shouts the headline on the London Evening Standard, with a photo of a cleaner at the Treasury who works 40 hours a week and gets up at 4am to live off lentil soup with her three children.
There's no doubt there is criminal unfairness in London - where the rich spend thousands on champagne at parties and the poor serve them but can't even keep their tips as their employer "counts" them towards the minimum wage they are legally entitled to.
Even the Mayor is weighing in, commenting that he's really grateful to the Evening Standard for "again highlighting the poverty and deprivation that shame this city".
The Standard doesn't stop however, at highlighting that people earn peanuts and live in overcrowded and dismal accommodation, struggle to afford the basics and can do little to pull themselves out of the poverty trap. The Standard also helpfully points out the gap between rich and poor by covering, in a fabulous pull-out supplement, convenient second homes for Londoners - or at least those rich enough to afford them. The newspaper gleefully points out how "The priority for a growing band of busy Londoners searching for a second home is to stay within two hours of the city."
How nice to see that the Treasury cleaner, whose journey according to London Transport, will take less that half of that - 49 minutes from Houndslow Bus Station to Westminster, leaving at 4.04am.
While I believe that people should be free to spend their money as they choose, the ability to earn that money is far from universal. Education, language skills and nationality all play a part. It is laudable and cheering that so many ordinary people (as well as the celebs) - interviewed by the Standard - think it's a great idea and want to help, even though many of them are probably not exactly swimming in riches themselves.
But I wonder.....Is it an ironic comment that the Standard should contrast the lifestyle of those who work at the underbelly of society, cleaning its toilets, serving its food and wine, sweeping its streets with those who don't just have, but have a lot?
Or is it simply a bandwagon? After all, we’re between Comic Relief and the BBC’s Children in Need and with all the cuts, the Government could do with the Evening Standard’s support in making everyone feel as though they’re doing something to offset the cuts in spending. A million pounds to match the paper’s fundraising sounds very nice, but is a far, far cry from the £13bn that comes to charities from state sources nationally.
So while any help is laudable, it could look – and indeed, it does to me – that this is adding insult to injury not only to the charities closing down in their dozens, but also to the people that this “Dispossessed” fund is supposed to help. Or are they dispossessed of their right to dignity too?
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Tuesday 6 July 2010
Testing positive? Thoughts about positive psychology
I recently saw magician Derren Brown on TV talking about mediums. In the light of what – at best – could be called circumstantial evidence that mediums did indeed talk to the dead, he mused that perhaps scientific proof was less important to the bereaved than the comfort which they took from the idea that their loved ones were in contact.
He made the point that people who consult a medium are looking to believe and will search for information which supports their need.
This reminded me of a mindstretch® I’d delivered on positive psychology. I thought I’d made a fairly convincing case that there was considerable doubt – and certainly not enough replicable research results – that positive psychology would deliver on its promises.
In the session, I noted the key criticisms that research in positive psychology was often based on cross sectional questionnaires and not longitudinal, and therefore it is impossible to claim any cause and effect.
Samples in positive psychology research (along with psychology research as a whole) are often small, increasing the statistical effect size of any findings. This encourages claims that sound more impressive than they really are. Audiences for these questionnaires are often white, middle class and college educated, which throws doubts on how far the findings can be generalised across audiences.
Emotions in positive psychology research are seen as either black (bad) or white (good) with no view that, for example, anger may be destructive but can create feelings of power and energy, even release. Alongside this simplistic view of emotion are simplistic measurements – and if emotion is measured poorly, say critics, we are left with little real understanding of emotions and aggregated results which have little meaning.
Other critics feel that the whole thrust of positive psychology movement is unabashedly American, and has a very Western concept of “self”. This is not consistent with a movement which claims it is global – the concept of self differs considerably in Eastern and Asian cultures.
I outlined the lack of reflection and self-critique of the movement which has resolutely resisted the calls of other academics to acknowledge these criticisms or even to defend its position. Finally, I spoke of the disturbing sale of positive psychology courses to cancer sufferers as a method of self-cure. This last has no empirical evidence base to support it at all and claims that it does have outraged physicians and oncologists.
All in all, I thought, a good list of reasons to view the claims of the movement with caution.
However, a little like those who sought messages from their deceased loved ones, my audience was still intrigued by positive psychology, even while they acknowledged the weight of the evidence.
To the extent that should a consultant come knocking, they would still buy? I asked. There were nods around the table from the same heads which had been shaken at poor research methodology and inadequate sample sizes.
Which got me thinking – are some ideas so intuitively appealing that regardless of the efficacy, we would buy them?
concentrate on the strengths of human beings, rather than their weaknesses? To bury the stick, and not even need so many carrots?
And I found myself remembering that the purchase of any type of consultancy or the advocacy of an idea doesn’t take place in a vacuum; it says something about a leader, about a leadership team, about an individual.
I’ve always known this, of course. In a small consultancy you never forget the mantra of “no-one ever got fired for hiring IBM”. But somehow, as I research more and more into “new” ideas which look more and more like some pretty old ones, I think I was of the view that the rational arguments (does it work? Where’s the proof?) still hold some sway.
But the message of positive psychology is so optimistic, so human, so humane that it seems to bypass the normal rational processes that we imagine drive managerial decision making.
Or it may serve as an illustration that managerial decision making is like all decision making – not rational or calculated and based on careful consideration of the evidence, but influenced by emotion, prejudices, personal history and an awareness of self image. It is the idea, not proof or evidence, which ultimately encourages management to buy.
One final – and more positive - thought might be that it’s heartening to recognise that managers can still hope that there is an alternative management style which embraces rather than confronts the workforce – and that they’re willing to cross their fingers and jump to reach it.
He made the point that people who consult a medium are looking to believe and will search for information which supports their need.
This reminded me of a mindstretch® I’d delivered on positive psychology. I thought I’d made a fairly convincing case that there was considerable doubt – and certainly not enough replicable research results – that positive psychology would deliver on its promises.
In the session, I noted the key criticisms that research in positive psychology was often based on cross sectional questionnaires and not longitudinal, and therefore it is impossible to claim any cause and effect.
Samples in positive psychology research (along with psychology research as a whole) are often small, increasing the statistical effect size of any findings. This encourages claims that sound more impressive than they really are. Audiences for these questionnaires are often white, middle class and college educated, which throws doubts on how far the findings can be generalised across audiences.
Emotions in positive psychology research are seen as either black (bad) or white (good) with no view that, for example, anger may be destructive but can create feelings of power and energy, even release. Alongside this simplistic view of emotion are simplistic measurements – and if emotion is measured poorly, say critics, we are left with little real understanding of emotions and aggregated results which have little meaning.
Other critics feel that the whole thrust of positive psychology movement is unabashedly American, and has a very Western concept of “self”. This is not consistent with a movement which claims it is global – the concept of self differs considerably in Eastern and Asian cultures.
I outlined the lack of reflection and self-critique of the movement which has resolutely resisted the calls of other academics to acknowledge these criticisms or even to defend its position. Finally, I spoke of the disturbing sale of positive psychology courses to cancer sufferers as a method of self-cure. This last has no empirical evidence base to support it at all and claims that it does have outraged physicians and oncologists.
All in all, I thought, a good list of reasons to view the claims of the movement with caution.
However, a little like those who sought messages from their deceased loved ones, my audience was still intrigued by positive psychology, even while they acknowledged the weight of the evidence.
To the extent that should a consultant come knocking, they would still buy? I asked. There were nods around the table from the same heads which had been shaken at poor research methodology and inadequate sample sizes.
Which got me thinking – are some ideas so intuitively appealing that regardless of the efficacy, we would buy them?
concentrate on the strengths of human beings, rather than their weaknesses? To bury the stick, and not even need so many carrots?
And I found myself remembering that the purchase of any type of consultancy or the advocacy of an idea doesn’t take place in a vacuum; it says something about a leader, about a leadership team, about an individual.
I’ve always known this, of course. In a small consultancy you never forget the mantra of “no-one ever got fired for hiring IBM”. But somehow, as I research more and more into “new” ideas which look more and more like some pretty old ones, I think I was of the view that the rational arguments (does it work? Where’s the proof?) still hold some sway.
But the message of positive psychology is so optimistic, so human, so humane that it seems to bypass the normal rational processes that we imagine drive managerial decision making.
Or it may serve as an illustration that managerial decision making is like all decision making – not rational or calculated and based on careful consideration of the evidence, but influenced by emotion, prejudices, personal history and an awareness of self image. It is the idea, not proof or evidence, which ultimately encourages management to buy.
One final – and more positive - thought might be that it’s heartening to recognise that managers can still hope that there is an alternative management style which embraces rather than confronts the workforce – and that they’re willing to cross their fingers and jump to reach it.
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