Cultivation and the dual process of dangerous and competitive worldviews – A theoretical synthesis

Abstract Cultivation research suggests that media use, particularly TV, is associated with a wide range of politically relevant views and attitudes, including perceptions of the world as a mean and dangerous place, authoritarianism, and perceived meritocracy. However, little attempt has been made to understand how these effects relate to one another and to broader models of political psychology. We present a new Cultivation–Political Psychology Interface Model, which uses Duckitt’s Dual Process Model (2001) of political psychology as a lens to understand cultivation research. Many seemingly distinct cultivation effects related to political attitudes can thus be reduced to two overall dimensions: dangerous and competitive worldviews. We identify evidence gaps, particularly in terms of competitive-worldview effects and related political attitudes. Our model generates a landscape of attitudes and beliefs, whereby some attitudes are hypothesized to be more upstream than others, leading to testable hypotheses for future research

Ways to Well-being : Exploring the links between children's activities and their subjective well-being

This report describes the outcomes of a research study which explores activities that children can do themselves that might be linked to increased feelings of well-being

The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why good lives don’t have to cost the Earth

The report presents the results of the second global compilation of the Happy Planet Index, based on improved data for 143 countries around the world – representing 99 per cent of the world’s population. The results shows that globally we are still far from achieving good lives within the Earth’s finite resource limits. But although the evidence shows that we are heading in the wrong direction, the achievements of some countries around the world provide reasons to believe that we can achieve true sustainable well-being

'Moments of Change' as opportunities for influencing behaviour

This document is the final report from Project EV0506 – “Moments of change” as opportunities for influencing behaviour. It was commissioned by the Centre of Expertise on Influencing Behaviours at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The goal of the project was to explore whether “moments of change” – times in a person‟s life where existing habits and behavioural patterns are disrupted – provide a significant opportunity to encourage the take-up of pro-environmental behaviours. In particular, the project focused on life events (such as having a baby) and macroeconomic events (such as the 2008/9 “credit crunch”)

National Accounts of Well-being: bringing real wealth onto the balance sheet

The report sets out the details of nef's case for governments to systematically measure and report on the well-being of their populations. Using the latest findings from the field of well-being research, it demonstrates how the case for national well-being measures is closely linked to the history of economic national accounting. It describes how a framework for National Accounts of Well-being was developed from European Social Survey data and presents the resulting findings, to show how National Accounts of Well-being can provide a new, more meaningful measure of national success and help governments take decisions to improve the lives of their citizens

The distribution of total embodied greenhouse gas emissions by households in the UK, and some implications for social policy

This paper maps the distribution of total direct and embodied emissions of greenhouse gases by households in the UK and goes on to analyse their main drivers. Previous research has studied the distribution of direct emissions by households, notably from domestic fuel and electricity, but this is the first to cover the indirect emissions embodied in the consumption of food, consumer goods and services, including imports. To study total emissions by British households we link an input-output model of the UK economy to the UK Expenditure and Food Survey. Results are presented as descriptive statistics followed by regression analysis. All categories of per capita emission rise with income which is the main driver. Two other variables are always significant: household composition, partly reflecting economies of scale in consumption and emissions in larger households, and employment status. This ‘standard’ model explains 35% of variation in total emissions, reflecting further variation within income groups and household types. We also compute the distribution of emissions derived from the consumption of welfare state services: here, lower income and pensioner households ‘emit’ more due to their greater use of these services. To take further account of the social implications of these findings, we first estimate emissions per £ of income. This shows a reverse slope with emissions per £ rising as one descends the income scale. The decline with income is especially acute for domestic energy, housing and food emissions, ‘necessary’ expenditures with a lower income elasticity of demand. Next, we move away from per capita emissions by assuming children under 14 emit half that of adults, which reduces disparities between household types. To implement personal carbon allowances, further research will be needed into the carbon allowances of children and single person households. Current government policies to raise carbon prices mainly in domestic energy are found to be especially regressive, but tracking total carbon consumption within a country would require radical changes in monitoring carbon flows at national borders. In the meantime, poorly targeted policies to compensate ‘fuel poor’ families should give way to more radical ‘eco-social’ policies, such as house retrofitting, coupled with ‘social’ tariffs for domestic energy

Estimating worldwide life satisfaction

Whilst studies of life satisfaction are becoming more common-place, their global coverage is far from complete. This paper develops a new database of life satisfaction scores for 178 countries, bringing together subjective well-being data from four surveys and using stepwise regression to estimate scores for nations where no subjective data are available. In doing so, we explore various factors that predict between-nation variation in subjective life satisfaction, building on Vemuri and Costanza's (Vemuri, A.W., & Costanza, R., 2006. The role of human, social, built, and natural capital in explaining life satisfaction at the country level: toward a National Well-Being Index (NWI). Ecological Economics, 58:119-133.) four capitals model. The main regression model explains 76% of variation in existing subjective scores; importantly, this includes poorer nations that had proven problematic in Vemuri and Costanza's (Vemuri, A.W., & Costanza, R., 2006. The role of human, social, built, and natural capital in explaining life satisfaction at the country level: toward a National Well-Being Index (NWI). Ecological Economics, 58:119-133.) study. Natural, human and socio-political capitals are all found to be strong predictors of life satisfaction. Built capital, operationalised as GDP, did not enter our regression model, being overshadowed by the human capital and socio-political capital factors that it inter-correlates with. The final database presents a stop-gap resource that, until robust surveys are carried out worldwide, allows comparisons of subjective life satisfaction between nations to be made with reasonable confidence.

Exploring the effects of Social Capital on COVID-19 Rates at the Local Level

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly severe in the UK, there has been a high degree of geographic variation in COVID-19 case rates across the country. Several factors have been put forward to explain such variation in the UK and elsewhere, such as differences in population mobility, deprivation and rurality and in levels of trust in others and in government and institutions. Research from other countries suggests aspects of social capital may be differentially related to case rates at the local area level. This working paper reports on regression analysis of the impact of two types of social capital on COVID-19 case rates at the local authority level in England and Wales: civic social capital and informal social capital. Whilst civic social capital was broadly associated with lower case rates, informal social capital variables did not have a consistent significant effect. These findings are discussed with reference to similar findings from the USA and also to the effect of the control variables. A key conclusion for local authorities and others is that building positive relationships between citizens and local non-governmental organisations (e.g., sports, religious and volunteering groups) could strengthen responses to future pandemics