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Improving Public Discussion About Inequality A Briefing Paper • How can we counter myths about poverty and inequality? • How do we avoid people ‘switching off’ in discussions about how we might reduce inequality? • How can we counter feelings of paralysis and hopelessness about social change?
SUMMARY
Public attitudes towards inequality are complex. People generally believe that some occupations should be paid more than others. But they also believe that the gap between the highest and lowest paid is too great.1 Many members of the public appear to feel that inequality is inevitable and that there is little chance of reducing it. Media portrayals of poverty reinforce stereotypes of people living in poverty as ‘scroungers’. They maintain myths, such as “Poverty only exists because people are too lazy to work”. Public support for increased spending on welfare benefits is in decline.2 There are also a number of prevailing myths about inequality. For example, when asked to guess out of every £100 spent from the welfare budget, how much of that is claimed fradulently, members of the public estimated an average of 24% when the actual amount is 0.7%.3 This briefing note was inspired by several reports published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.1,4,5,6 It is informed by those reports as well as a range of psychological and social science research. It aims to increase public understanding of inequality, improve the way we talk about it and thus to lead to better, more informed policies that might reduce inequality. Ways to use this briefing note could vary: from writing articles or letters to newspapers; calling in to radio phone-ins; to talking to friends, family and colleagues.
Recommendations from this briefing note 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Adapt your message to the audience’s interests or values Avoid vague terms like ‘poverty’, and talk about specific issues Think about how you frame the issue when painting the picture Provide evidence of change when exploring different views Think about how changes would maintain or improve the public’s quality of life Use social norms to demonstrate support for social change
1. Adapt your message to the audience’s interests or values There are lots of barriers to communication about inequality being ‘heard’ by the public in the first place. Every environment is made up of more information than individuals can monitor, so we attend to environments selectively. Information can therefore be missed, either because it is not relevant to a person’s current situation or because it has been presented too often in the same way, leading to an overfamiliarity with the message. It is therefore important to consider how the information you wish to share can be targeted to avoid being missed or ignored by the public. Audience segmentation might be a useful strategy; the target audience is divided according to their probable interests to help identify effective communication channels and messages for each group. This might include the targeting of specific groups by a shared interest or circumstance, such as: • Specific professions about a particular social policy which impacts their work • Supporters of a local football team about an issue related to their area • Commuters on public transport about wage levels and increasing travel costs.5 When communicating about inequality, it can be helpful to think about the values underpinning the arguments. There is some research which suggests that people who believe in ‘liberal’ politics highly value the prevention of harm and whether something is fair. In comparison, people who believe in ‘conservative’ politics draw upon these two factors as well as considering loyalty to their group, whether something respects hierarchy and whether something is pure. Based on this, arguments against inequality appealing only to values of justice and fairness are not appealing to the range of values which members of the public may be drawing upon. This suggests that appealing to the virtues of loyalty, duty and purity are as important as appealing to fairness and justice in widening discussion beyond those who already wish to reduce inequality.7 This might include thinking about the dutiesof citizens to reduce inequality or loyalty to an ideal of a better society.
It is also useful to consider what issues are likely to engage a broader range of people. For instance, when asked to place themselves on a spectrum of income distribution, people often place themselves in the middle (even if they are actually at the top or bottom of the distribution)4,8 and they focus on the gap between ‘the middle’ and the ‘super rich’, rather than the gap between the richest and poorest. They also have a tendency to demonstrate more judgemental attitudes towards those at the either ends of the spectrum. For example, the ‘super rich’ are more likely to be considered as less deserving of their very high income, whereas those earning the very least are more likely to be blamed for their situation. It could be helpful to focus on information about the extremes of wealth, for instance that the combined wealth of the richest 1 per cent will overtake that of the other 99 per cent of people in 2016 unless world governments develop international policies which address tax avoidance, living wages and agree a global goal to tackle inequality.9
Local campaigning resources The Equality Trust10 has a variety of resources to support local campaigns, such as a ‘Make my Council Fair’ pack which outlines the key issues, how to find out the facts, how to engage the council and gain local support and other useful information.
2. Avoid terms like ‘poverty’ and talk about specific issues Sometimes we use language which triggers stereotypical beliefs people hold about the causes of inequality. Because these beliefs are based upon stereotypes rather than analysis, they are likely to be simplistic and distorted.11 The power of these stereotypes appears to come from the ease with which they ‘take hold’ in public consciousness. However, when applied to real-life scenarios stereotypes often no longer make sense.12 For example, stereotypical beliefs that people receiving benefits are “lazy scroungers” no longer make sense when people are presented with information on the high proportion of recipients who are in work, in low paid jobs or working longer hours. Interestingly, people often use multiple explanations about an issue at the same time (see box, below). One option is to provide an alternative explanation to the stereotypical
ones provided in the media or by politicians. It may be helpful to provide explanations which clearly demonstrate the connection between poverty and specific issues such as zero-hour contracts, low pay and the rising cost of living. For example, explaining the problem of not being able to pay all of one’s bills in terms of the cost of housing as a percentage of income rather than the individual not being thrifty enough.12 It is important that this message is communicated as clearly and simply as possible, as our attention is more likely to be drawn to something we understand. For example, the size of a government department budget is more likely to attract someone’s attention when expressed as an amount per taxpayer rather than as the overall amount.13
People use multiple explanations People use different explanations of poverty in different contexts, and often give apparently contradictory explanations at the same time.11,12 For example the same person may make sense of poverty using both individual victim-blaming alongside government-based explanations. This is important because different explanations lead to different solutions and explanations that blame the poor or fate mean that societal changes aren’t required.
3. Think about how you ‘frame’ the issue when painting the picture The way that information is organised is important; this can be considered as how something is ‘framed’ (see box, right). Social issues can be framed in a variety of ways, which call for different solutions. For example, if a news story about homelessness follows a particular person’s story, the public may be more likely to describe the individual as responsible for their situation. Whereas if the story focuses on general trends of homelessness, including information such as the current shortage of social housing and poor welfare provision for veterans, responsibility is more likely to be described at a societal level.14 Inequality can be framed in multiple ways. Envy is one way inequality is framed – for example, media accounts of the ‘politics of envy’. However, another frame which could be used is justice – for example, in 1980 CEOs were paid between 13 to 44 times the wage of their average employee whereas in 2014 several FTSE companies paid their CEOs up to nearly 800 times the wage of their average employee.15 When framing solutions, the aim is to reach a shared understanding of: • The problematic situation which needs to change • Who or what is to blame or responsible for this • An alternative set of arrangements • The need to take action to make a change. One way of increasing the likelihood of developing a shared understanding of the solution is by increasing its resonance with the audience. This is how much it ‘rings true’. When framing information to increase its resonance it can be helpful to consider its: • Credibility: is the problem consistent with the proposed action? Is it based on evidence which is believable to the target audience? How credible is the person or group who is sharing the information? And; • Salience: how central and relevant are the ideas to the lives of the target audience? How much do the ideas fit in with the wider stories which are dominant in wider culture?17
Framing Framing an argument is when we select some aspects of information and make them more noticeable in how they are presented to the reader.16 You could think about it as selecting what part of a big and complex picture that you choose to put a frame around, directing the reader’s attention to certain aspects of the information, which influences how they go on to process that information.
Slogans can be a useful way of picking out key parts of the message and making them salient. For example, “We are the 99%” and “Think global, act local.” Framing information about inequality by asking the reader ‘does this person deserve to be paid that much/ little for the work they do?’ was also shown to engage a wider range of people, some of whom may not have been interested in arguments against inequality more generally. Furthermore, arguments which framed equality as about an equal reward for one’s efforts and contributions were supported by a wider variety of people, as they resonated with concerns about the top and bottom, rather than an abstract concept of equality. For example, “The country would not function without people on low-paid jobs, they deserve to be paid more for what they do.”4
4. Provide evidence of change when exploring different views Public acceptance of inequality could be understood as a form of cognitive avoidance in response to threat. Research on the appraisal of threat in ‘scare tactics’ used in health education campaigns has suggested that when people doubt that individual action would work or doubt their ability to respond, they reduce the threat by denial, avoidance, or reactance18 (see box, right). It may therefore be important to provide examples of significant social change in order to counter feelings of helplessness or hopelessness (see box, right).
Reactance An example of this is when you try to persuade another person of your point of view but, instead of agreeing with you, they become even more persuaded that you are wrong. A theoretical explanation of this is that, when people feel that their choices are being reduced or taken away, they may be motivated to behave in such a way, or adopt a view or attitude, that is contrary to what was intended. So, in an argument it can be helpful to explore different views and to provide evidence so people do not feel they are simply being given one-sided propaganda.
Countering helplessness and hopelessness about social change It can be helpful to remind ourselves that, in recent decades, there have been significant social changes: • In South Africa apartheid ended in 1994 after decades of struggle. • The percentage of the world living in extreme poverty has fallen from 85% in 1800 to 12% now.19 • In public health, smoking has reduced • Deaths from homicide and road traffic accidents have fallen. • With regard to conflict, the peace process in Northern Ireland has maintained progress since 1998. • In 60 years there have been big changes in relation to sexuality. In 1953 sex between men was illegal. In 1967 it became legal ‘in private’ so long as the men were over 21. In 1994 the age of consent reduced to 18. In 2000 the age of consent was reduced to 16 (equivalent for heterosexual sex) – though the vote was so close it required the Speaker to use his (rarely used) casting vote. In 2002 the civil partnerships bill was passed and in 2013 same-sex couples were allowed to get married. • During this period, the Conservative party moved from trying to prevent schoolchildren learning about homosexuality in the 1980s to a party which supported the introduction of same-sex marriage in 2013.
5. Think about how change would benefit quality of life People who hold strong views about complex social issues have a tendency to examine evidence in line with their opinions; believing evidence that supports their opinion and discrediting evidence which does not.20 In fact, in people who hold strong opinions, providing information that debunks myths can cause them to act in the opposite way intended (this has been called the backfire effect).21 However providing information about the risks of not doing something, doesn’t seem to have this effect.22 This may be because people tend to dislike losses more than they like gains of the same amount.13 Based on this, it has been suggested that if actions can be portrayed as avoiding losses or preserving the way of life, that denial and resistance to change can be overcome. It may be beneficial to frame arguments in terms of their benefits (see box, below) or with suggestions for appropriate actions people could take (without taking a stance which clearly intends to persuade or convert the reader to a particular opinion). This strategy could be enhanced by findings from research which indicate that people are more open to approaches which indirectly reduce inequality if they
are framed as improving their quality of life. People who were not generally interested in reducing inequality were happy to reduce their income for shorter working hours, or to pay more tax for better public services. Looking at the possible effects of income inequality on the rate of social problems, such as crime, also increased the likelihood of inequality being seen as a problem. This also increased people’s willingness to support measures to tackle it.4 So perhaps solutions which propose improving the person’s or community’s quality of life, through the reduction in social problems caused by social inequalities, may engage a wider range of people.
Reducing inequality benefits everyone Research indicates that inequality changes the way that people engage with one another on a societal level.23 Communities with higher levels of inequality are less likely to help each other in acts of altruism, engage in the political process and have lower levels of cultural activity. Rates of violence are also higher in more unequal societies. Based on this, reducing inequality would benefit all people in society, not just those currently disadvantaged. For example, high levels of inequality in neighbourhoods leads to the development of gated communities, where the rich may be afraid to go out and use public space or to talk to their neighbours. Although they may live in individual comfort, they lack the freedom to go outside without being fearful.
6. Use social norms to demonstrate support for social change Who communicates the information is very important when determining how much weight is given to it. Some studies have suggested that people are more likely to act on information if it is delivered by people who look and act like them.24 When considering the impact of hearing a message from a friend or peer, we can consider the role of social norms; this is the idea that we tend to do what people around us are already doing.13 People compare their behaviour with those around them to understand what is expected of them, by the group or by society more generally. These norms can be developed through social networks at home or at work and can be applied to behaviour changes which might increase social action or engagement in campaigns.4 To further engage people who have shown an interest, social norms could be used to encourage certain behaviours or social action (see box, below). Many campaigning organisations use social media as a way of further developing their community.25 Engagement through social media might allow the sharing of information and expression of support for a campaign within a person’s social network. This could have the effect of creating a social norm around support for a certain issue. This can also take place through discussion with friends and family, or colleagues in the workplace.
Born in the NHS The ‘Born in the NHS’ campaign2has become a popular way for people to assert their identification with, and support for, the NHS. People started by sharing their experiences of the NHS on social media using the twitter hashtag #borninthenhs. This led to the creation of mugs, t-shirts hoodies and badges with the slogan. This could be considered to have set a social norm about valuing the NHS, which also invited others to show whether they also value it.
Summary of this briefing note • Adapt your message to the audience’s interests or values • Avoid vague terms like ‘poverty’, and talk about specific issues • Think about how you ‘frame’ the issue when painting the picture • Provide evidence of change when exploring different views • Think about how changes would maintain or improve the public’s quality of life • Use social norms to demonstrate support for social change
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The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2098-2109. 21 Nyhan, B., Reifler, J., Richey, S. & Freed, G. L. (2014). Effective messages in vaccine promotion: A randomized trial. Pediatrics, 133(4), e835-e842 22 Horne, Z., Powell, D., Hummel, J. E. & Holyoak, K. J. (2015). Countering antivaccination attitudes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(33), 10321-10324. 23 Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2010). The spirit level: Why equality is better for everyone. London: Penguin Group. 24 Durantini, M.R., Albarracin, D., Mitchell, A.L., Earl, A.N. & Gillette, J.C. (2006). Conceptualizing the influence of social agents of behavior change: A meta–analysis of the effectiveness of HIV–prevention interventionists for different groups. Psychological Bulletin 132, 212–248. 25 Rodriguez, N. S. (2016). Communicating global inequalities: How LGBTI asylum-specific NGOs use social media as public relations. Public Relations Review. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. pubrev.2015.12.002 26 Retrieved 02.02.16 from http://peopleshistorynhs. org/encyclopaedia/born-in-the-nhs/
Written by: Sinead Peacock-Brennan and Dave Harper. With contributions from: Sam Thompson, Laura McGrath, Sally Zlotowitz and Tamsin Curno. Thanks to: School of Psychology, University of East London; the members of Psychologists Against Austerity; Emma Anderson.
