“There is nothing I can say to recommend this book more highly. If you don’t understand its argument you don’t understand modern politics. Buy it, read it, absorb it, and then think about what it means in practice. It will challenge your assumptions and change the way you look at things completely.”

All age groups have people in all Maslow Groups (Settler, Prospector, pioneer).  But you will see that broadly speaking, younger age groups are most skewed to Settler/Prospector (15 – 17), 18 – 21 year olds are more skewed to the Prospector/Pioneer groups, and after that ‘age’ as a correlate/ predictor begins to break down.  However you can see that 22 – 35 year olds are strongly skewed to Prospector  – which illustrates the importance of being able to deal with this influential demographic (young families, working age etc) in Prospector (Outer Directed) terms.

You can also see that 45 and above there is a larger skew to Pioneer.  This is reflected in the age distribution of many ‘ethical’ NGOs.

There are multiple dynamics underlying these distributions, as you are looking at cohort effects (and so far as I know, nobody has large data set longitudinal cohort studies).  For example some of the old Settlers (over 55) are the tail end of a segment that used to be much bigger.  In the past the older UK population was predominantly Settler – now it is dominated by Pioneers and Settlers because social conditions have changed, enabling more people to make the transition through life Settler> Prospector> Pioneer.

This dynamic is illustrated by the younger age groups and the reasons for it are hinted at in these maps that show the difference between students and non-students in the 18 – 21 group.  18-21 values distributions students and non students uk pop

The non students are more skewed to Prospector, the students more to Pioneer.  The very different experiences of these groups in terms of being told/ feeling they are a ‘success’ (beacuse of immersion in the school and university system) may explain this difference.

This in turn suggests that the pronounced differences between Prospectors and Pioneers that these groups (non-student/ student) exhibit are not something they were born with but something they have acquired through life experiences.

Here you see almost the exact opposite to the post below. The great bulk of Guardian readers espouse Attributes like Justice (eg human rights and treating refugees or immigrants the same as anyone ‘British’), care for Nature, Global (not being bothered by foreigners in the country), Open-ness (open to hearing the ideas of others) Adaptable (not wanting fixed rules) and Equanimity (being relaxed and generally happy).  This values set often puts them at odds with BNWs and Golden Dreamers along an axis known as ‘Power versus Universalism’.  These Pioneers also score highly on ‘non acquisitive’ – the opposite of Material Wealth. Not surprising then, that the very ‘ethical’ values epitomized in the journalism of The Guardian were eventually the nemesis of the Murdoch phone hackers.

Curiously, there is a small but distinct outlier group of Golden Dreamers who also claim to be regular readers of The Guardian, despite their apparently opposed values set.  Pat Dade says “we do not know exactly who these people are but it could be that they are active power-seekers, whether in business or politics, who will read a paper like The Guardian to see what many successful people are up to, or to find out about “the opposition”.  When we survey political activists (a tiny proportion of the population at about 3%) we often see this split, between Transcender Values Mode Pioneers, and Golden Dreamer Prospectors.

Here, according to people surveyed by CDSM Cultural Dynamics (www.cultdyn.co.uk) are the regular readers of The Sun, the flagship Murdoch newspaper in the UK.   This is the boundary between ‘Brave New World’ (BNW) Settlers, who have a strong drive for group identity, and the Golden Dreamer subset (Values Mode) of Prospectors, who are seeking esteem of others.

Of the 1,000 questions posed by CDSM in its 8,500 person British Values Survey, those most powerfully defining this group concern the Attributes (a cluster of strongly correlated questions) “Power” and “Material Wealth”.  These people are ‘heading towards’ attitudes and beliefs like visible success and later, fun and hedonism but they are currently still very disciplinarian, like the Settlers, and can be very quick to take offence, especially if they sense any threat to their advancement in life.  They tend more than other groups, to believe in conspiracies and easily get “riled up” by being told not to do something on “ethical grounds”. Gaining power in any form – money, influence, control – is a strong driver.  An ex NI Executive recently recounted in a tv documentary, how an exec’ from The Sun boasted that his newspaper had “no ethics”.  This is the values set where anything goes if you can get away with it.  what’s ‘right’ is “whatever works” (to give me/my group power).

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A few years back Pat Dade (Director of CDSM) said the Golden Dreamer mindset is: “  I can have it all – but where do I start ?  Life is a game game – and it is important that I don’t lose. Respect for my competence is essential – even if I have to fudge the results to make myself look better.  I know when I look good, to others, I feel good.  Guys with power are not losers, therefore power is what it is all about.  Get the power and all else follows – keep the dream alive at any cost !”  Now think about how Rupert Murdoch’s empire operated – for example the way it tried to back winners in British politics …

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