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___________________________________ The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/ There is a threaded discussion forum: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below. David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK----- Original Message -----From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Paul DuckettTo: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 7:22 PMSubject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Happiness surveyHere's something I scribbled down somewhere a while back about defining well-being. Don't know if it is useful.
It's only since socio-economic conditions have permitted the possibility of producing plenty, indeed the possibility of producing excess, has happiness and well-being started to appear as a social goal and then as a moral project in the West. This happened alongside a shift from the normative regulation of behaviour (where behaviour was regulated by social norms) to regulation through excess (where behaviour is now regulated by marketing and advertising that prescribe the arousal of new needs and desires). This is one explanation as to why ‘happiness and well-being’ have become so important –consumer culture is dependent upon the notion of ‘well-being’ and happiness and their pursuit is the primary means for a consumer capitalist economic system to manufacture the social conditions for excessive desire. The desire for more and more (rather than the satisfaction with having ‘enough’) is the regulation of excess that drives consumer-orientated cultures that in turn feed neo-liberal market economies.The prominence of the concepts of well-being and happiness in CP may be why positive psychology both appears to seduce some community psychologists to it and it to community psychology. What is remarkable is that a discipline founded on the pursuit of happiness (positive psychology) and one that appears happy to jump upon its tailcoat (CP) is that both are balancing themselves on a set of pleonasms (happiness and well-being are nothing more or less than descriptions of being in a state we desire to be in). The fact that CP invests considerable time into giving further elaboration to such a moribund concept as ‘well-being’ is both confusing and frustrating. At best, the study of well-being and happiness might be to act as a mirror on the society in which the concept is being invoked and give us a glimpse into what different people in different socio-cultural and historical contexts consider to be their preferred living conditions: the concept is wholly time- and place-bound. At worst, happiness and well-being are used as vehicles of colonisation whereby that which is valued by one society can be imposed upon another: i.e., when claims about the conditions for well-being are universalised rather than localised.
On 12/12/2010 16:58, CRAIG NEWNES wrote:[log in to unmask] type="cite">___________________________________ The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/ There is a threaded discussion forum: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below. David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUKRichard, Can you define wellbeing? I won't critique your response as you are more than capable of doing that. I would be fascinated to see others on the list have a go at a definition.C
From: richard pemberton <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, 12 December, 2010 11:46:23
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Happiness survey
David and Craig again nudging the list away from anything other than the critical straight and narrow? I think the Wellbeing agenda opens the door to societal narratives. It could of course just be more individualistic/religious remembering to count your blessings every night - one of these in the public sector might be still having a job just now - or blimey I am retired on a good NHS pension so I can renounce my previous Big Psy lackey past! The Wellbeing and new Public Health Agendas do however offer new ways in for both Community and Critical Psychology thinking and practice? The psychopathology bubble might be full to bursting? Big Society is of course a con but its also an opportunity?RichardPs The West Midlands Group must be having an effect - a number of Birmingham Iapt sites have lost their PCT funding and up for closure.On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 6:32 PM, CRAIG NEWNES <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
___________________________________ The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/ There is a threaded discussion forum: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below. David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUKApart from a nice Telegraph cartoon about this, folk who haven't seen it might like to look at Private Eye's version of the Happiness Survey which captures the politics of choice perfectly. Mark Rapley also told me that IAPT monies are now ring-fenced so - hey - no excuse to be miserable now that a CBT therapist supervised by a Clinical Psychologist will sort you out. Worse, in a bid for credibility, the CBT therapist and Clin Psych supervisor will discuss the economic cynicism behind it all - while still getting paid.C
From: "Fryer, David" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, 10 December, 2010 8:54:20
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Behavioural insight team: Nudge
Dear John, Penny, Annie, Wendy and all,
Wendy drew attention to this BIT stuff some time ago on the list and I looked at it then with dismay. I see it as yet another local manifestation of an internationally evident processes. I agree that one ideological function of this stuff is to draw attention away from the socially constituted nature of oppression and reposition it as the result of individual dysfunctional 'choice', that it is part of an onslaught on resources devoted to societal change etc. However I am still impressed by the legacy of Foucault (and post-Foucauldian) work, which I do not see usefully captured as about 'free' 'choice' between regulated 'options'. I am still keen on working out the contemporary implications of what Foucault was doing some decades ago or, more accurately, problematising contemporary manifestations of (re)subjectification productive of governmentality. Noxious nonsense like BIT creates opportunities for many parasites of neo-liberalism to make money but my view is that it is of far more problematic than that. I would not be at all reassured if a thorough literature review of "studies directly testing hypotheses generated by the theory" rejected them nor by "a mass of empirical evidence to back up the claim that there's a new technology of behavioural manipulation", not only because I am unimpressed methodologically by that style of claim legitimation (research) but, because I think it misses the point that this is just one more manifestation of the re-constitution of what it is to be human. Engaging with, uncovering and contesting the assemblages achieving this re-constitution seems to me an important task for community critical psychology.
David
________________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Cromby [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 09 December 2010 20:26
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Behavioural insight team: Nudge
Hi
This is interesting stuff. On the one hand its same old, same old: the
government want to regulate and control what we 'freely' choose whilst
generating the appearance of beneficence and democracy. One of the best
ways of controlling a population is to give them 'free' choice but then
predetermine the options they are able to viably choose between. Amongst
others, Foucault was onto this some years ago.
And on the other hand, from what I can find online it seems like little
more than economists finally waking up to the idea that their pet theory
of rational choice doesn't actually capture how most people decide in
most situations. Its wrapped up in a language of 'choice architecture'
which makes it sound sinister but I'm not convinced they've provided
much that's actually new. I couldn't find any studies directly testing
hypotheses generated by the theory - though I didn't have loads of time
to spend searching - but I'm not convinced there's too much here that's
new or different to the techniques that advertisers have been using for
decades except that they've chucked in the behaviourist finding that its
better to reward good choices than punish bad ones.
The kinds of choices they want to nudge us toward 'for our own good and
the good of all' will presumably include things like exercising more,
smoking less, drinking only in moderation, and having sex only on
Sundays and even then under a duvet with the light off and strictly in
the missionary position. Yet they're employing McDonald and Pepsi to
help them write health policy and representatives of the alcohol
industry to advise on responsible drinking. I don't think they've yet
signed up a porn star to advise on sexual moderation but that can't be
far away.
At the same time they're cutting funds to local government and freezing
or limiting council tax, forcing steep rises in the cost of e.g.
swimming pool and football pitch hire and gym use. They're putting VAT
up to 20%, cutting public sector jobs and wages, reducing benefits...
In this context I'd see their adoption of nudge theory as more akin to
the notion of the big society: a figleaf to cover over the fact that
we're being shafted. Unlike the big society it does involve them
actually doing something, although it has the benefit that what's
involved seems like it will cost little or nothing, adopting a rhetoric
and creating some guidelines rather than actually investing in people's
wellbeing.
But just like the big society its a figleaf that pushes responsibility
back onto us, our choices and our lifestyles. When it 'works' they'll
claim the credit, when it fails - which it mostly will because there's
little or no substance - they'll blame us. So its Foucault (and others)
yet again: they're giving us the power to choose whilst requiring us to
choose responsibly on their limited and restrictive terms.
I could be wrong and there's a mass of empirical evidence to back up the
claim that there's a new technology of behavioural manipulation here
that actually works. If anyone knows of anything it would be good to
hear it. But in the absence of that I'd be more concerned about their
use of nudge theory to legitimate a cuts agenda than their use of it to
manipulate our choices. Consequently, if we're to critique it then
that's where I think our critique should be targeted.
J.
On 09/12/2010 08:25, Annie Mitchell wrote:
> Dear all, Have people in the UK been following the development of the
> “nudge unit “ ( behavioural insight team) ? the intentions are intended
> towards social benefit ( but by getting us to change our individual
> choices by changing incentives ) and while there is some sense behind it
> in terms of acknowledging environmental determinants of human behaviour
> , I find the whole development hugely sinister - very alarming indeed to
> read ( see link below for Guardian report) “ The deputy prime minister,
> Nick Clegg, said he believed the unit could change the way citizens
> think.“ I didn’t read anything in the book about nudges ( or even
> shoves) towards bankers and unfettered business interests. What do
> others make of this development? Can we marshall a community psychology
> critique?
>
> Annie
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/09/cameron-nudge-unit-economic-behaviour
>
>
> ___________________________________ The Community Psychology List has a
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--
*********************************************************
John Cromby
Psychology Division, SSEHS
Loughborough University
Loughborough, Leics
LE11 3TU England
Tel: 01509 223000
Email: [log in to unmask]
Personal webpage: http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~hujc4/
Co-Editor, "Subjectivity": www.palgrave-journals.com/sub/
*********************************************************
___________________________________
The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at:
http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/
There is a threaded discussion forum:
http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi
There is a twitter feed:
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To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below.
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To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website:
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___________________________________
The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at:
http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/
There is a threaded discussion forum:
http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi
There is a twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK
To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below.
David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK
___________________________________ The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/ There is a threaded discussion forum: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below. David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK-- Paul Duckett Department of Psychology Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester, UK
___________________________________ The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/ There is a threaded discussion forum: http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below. David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK