[Music]
in 1950 Albert Einstein wrote a
remarkable letter that was later printed
in the New York Times and in it he
argued that we all live in a kind of
prison of restricted emotion and
affection for the few people that are
closest to us and the challenge for us
he argued is that we need to widen our
circle of compassion and this is not a
new idea we can find it in many of the
world’s religions and also we can go
back to the Stoics and the very idea of
cosmopolitanism came out this idea of
concentric circles of the self
family friends community the country and
the world and the Stoics argued that we
needed to bring everyone into our inner
circle consider this these two girls I
do not know their names but they live in
Madagascar are they any less a human
being than the person next year or the
people who live down the street do they
live in some kind of different moral
universe where they are less deserving
of our compassion or our assistance if
they get sick or if they are
malnourished or if they can’t afford to
go to school these actually really hard
questions that moral philosophers have
been grappling with for decades if not
centuries but most of us are not or
would not consider ourselves moral
philosophers and we are less likely to
turn to the writings of Immanuel Kant
than turn to the people next to us our
friends and family and indeed that’s
what I want to talk about today how does
our inner circle our friends and family
how do they influence how far our outer
circle of compassion goes in June this
year 2017 we as part of the aid
attitudes tracker ran a survey and
surveyed 8165 members of the British
public in a nationally representative
survey and asked them a series of
questions about how they feel about
global poverty and assisting distant
others versus those who live closer and
as you can see about 18% of the UK
public said
they were not very or not at all
concerned about global poverty but 47%
of the public are either fairly
concerned or very concerned and we also
know that this translates not perfectly
but this does help predict how wide
people feel like their circle of
compassion should be whether we should
exclusively focus on poverty here in the
UK or whether we should try and find a
balance of addressing poverty here and
poverty overseas and the question is
what difference does our social network
our friends and family their opinions
make to this relationship if anything so
we ask people to name up to three others
that they discuss the issue with since
2% of people said no one fair enough but
28% of people were able to name at least
one other person that they talked about
the issue with and just to be clear we
said this could be positive or it could
be negative and then we continue to ask
them a whole series of questions about
these other people that they discuss the
issue with so what is their gender what
is their age what is their ethnicity
what is their level of concern about
global poverty where do they sit on the
left-right political scale and finally
which of your connections these other
people are most likely to influence your
own opinion and on that last question
this is what we found friends were most
frequently mentioned as a source of
influence over people’s own attitudes
and views about global poverty but the
people that were ranked first most
consistently were our spouses or
partners now this varies according to
different groups within the population
so younger people are much more likely
to mention their parents older people
much more likely to mention their
children and men are much more likely
than women to mention friends or work
colleagues and women are much more
likely to talk about the members of
their family so this is what we can then
do with the data that we collected for
each one of our respondents in the
survey we can build a mini social
network around them that shows their
connections and whether they are similar
to them in terms of their gender their
age maybe their attitudes or whether
they are they are very different and so
for each purse
we can assign a score for each
characteristic say how diverse their
network is and we can use that score to
describe the population or we can use
that score to help explain and to
estimate the influence that it has on
their circle of compassion and whether
it makes it wider or smaller so purely
descriptively
here’s what we found so first of all
women’s social circles are 17 percent
larger than men that women are much more
likely to discuss the issue with other
men with the man sorry the men are with
women and it turns out that that matters
we also find that in terms of diversity
people are most likely to have age
diverse networks then gender diverse
networks before they are going to likely
to have diversity in terms of the
opinions of other people that they speak
with we are least likely to see earth
nicly diverse networks within the
British public
another thing we found was those within
the age group of 40 to 59 are the people
who are most likely to only speak to
other people who share the same opinions
as themselves so if any of you know
someone who’s about to turn 40 then wish
them luck because they’re about to enter
into the most the biggest echo chamber
of their of their life so far we also
know that women are more concerned about
global poverty than men are and those
who are younger are more likely to be
concerned that those who are older but
how does all this matter to go back to
the original question and to think about
how these things influence how wide our
circle of compassion is so first of all
what widens our circle of compassion
firstly your circle of compassion will
be wider if you are concerned about
global poverty that stands to reason we
knew that already and it stands up and
it holds your circle of compassion will
also be wider if you are younger as
opposed to being older but interestingly
your circle of compassion will be wider
if you are male than if you are female
for any given level
of concern so how do the social networks
matter well firstly if you discuss the
issue with a more giant gender diverse
group so if you identify as female and
you speak with men or males and or vice
versa you are more likely to have a
wider circle of compassion and we might
want to think about different
sociological explanations of why this
might be may be its openness to
diversity different views of compassion
etc expands our horizons I have a friend
he’s worked in global poverty for many
many years very committed and he offered
another more personal take on this and
he said David I can tell you how I got
into it there was the two girls I
fancied the most and they joined Amnesty
International so I joined Amnesty
International too so there’s that but
finally in terms of our attitudinal
diversity if you speak with other people
you have a lower level of concern about
global poverty than you do it’s going to
shrink your circle of compassion they
affect your circle and vice versa if you
have a low level of concern about global
poverty but you are speaking with other
people who have higher levels then your
circle of compassion will expand and get
larger so it matters who we speak to and
what their attitudes are I spend my days
researching in to why people get more or
less engaged with global poverty or
indeed one of the political drivers that
help reduce poverty expand people’s
freedoms and improve people’s life
overseas but I totally accept that not
everybody shares those priorities and
that is absolutely fine but here’s the
deal
the late great Brian Clough was being
interviewed by Michael Parkinson and
Parkinson asking the question he said
what do you do when one of your players
disagrees with you and says boss I think
you’re doing it wrong and cliff replied
well I asked him how he thinks it should
be done then we get down to it we talk
for 20 minutes and then we decide I was
right
the good news is we are not all brian
clough that we can and we do change our
opinion about global poverty and how
wide our circle of compassion should be
and actually it’s the people our friends
and family that we talk to that
influence this and similarly in talking
to our friends and family we can also
influence their attitudes and their
circle of compassion thank you
[Applause]
you
in 1950 Albert Einstein wrote a
remarkable letter that was later printed
in the New York Times and in it he
argued that we all live in a kind of
prison of restricted emotion and
affection for the few people that are
closest to us and the challenge for us
he argued is that we need to widen our
circle of compassion and this is not a
new idea we can find it in many of the
world’s religions and also we can go
back to the Stoics and the very idea of
cosmopolitanism came out this idea of
concentric circles of the self
family friends community the country and
the world and the Stoics argued that we
needed to bring everyone into our inner
circle consider this these two girls I
do not know their names but they live in
Madagascar are they any less a human
being than the person next year or the
people who live down the street do they
live in some kind of different moral
universe where they are less deserving
of our compassion or our assistance if
they get sick or if they are
malnourished or if they can’t afford to
go to school these actually really hard
questions that moral philosophers have
been grappling with for decades if not
centuries but most of us are not or
would not consider ourselves moral
philosophers and we are less likely to
turn to the writings of Immanuel Kant
than turn to the people next to us our
friends and family and indeed that’s
what I want to talk about today how does
our inner circle our friends and family
how do they influence how far our outer
circle of compassion goes in June this
year 2017 we as part of the aid
attitudes tracker ran a survey and
surveyed 8165 members of the British
public in a nationally representative
survey and asked them a series of
questions about how they feel about
global poverty and assisting distant
others versus those who live closer and
as you can see about 18% of the UK
public said
they were not very or not at all
concerned about global poverty but 47%
of the public are either fairly
concerned or very concerned and we also
know that this translates not perfectly
but this does help predict how wide
people feel like their circle of
compassion should be whether we should
exclusively focus on poverty here in the
UK or whether we should try and find a
balance of addressing poverty here and
poverty overseas and the question is
what difference does our social network
our friends and family their opinions
make to this relationship if anything so
we ask people to name up to three others
that they discuss the issue with since
2% of people said no one fair enough but
28% of people were able to name at least
one other person that they talked about
the issue with and just to be clear we
said this could be positive or it could
be negative and then we continue to ask
them a whole series of questions about
these other people that they discuss the
issue with so what is their gender what
is their age what is their ethnicity
what is their level of concern about
global poverty where do they sit on the
left-right political scale and finally
which of your connections these other
people are most likely to influence your
own opinion and on that last question
this is what we found friends were most
frequently mentioned as a source of
influence over people’s own attitudes
and views about global poverty but the
people that were ranked first most
consistently were our spouses or
partners now this varies according to
different groups within the population
so younger people are much more likely
to mention their parents older people
much more likely to mention their
children and men are much more likely
than women to mention friends or work
colleagues and women are much more
likely to talk about the members of
their family so this is what we can then
do with the data that we collected for
each one of our respondents in the
survey we can build a mini social
network around them that shows their
connections and whether they are similar
to them in terms of their gender their
age maybe their attitudes or whether
they are they are very different and so
for each purse
we can assign a score for each
characteristic say how diverse their
network is and we can use that score to
describe the population or we can use
that score to help explain and to
estimate the influence that it has on
their circle of compassion and whether
it makes it wider or smaller so purely
descriptively
here’s what we found so first of all
women’s social circles are 17 percent
larger than men that women are much more
likely to discuss the issue with other
men with the man sorry the men are with
women and it turns out that that matters
we also find that in terms of diversity
people are most likely to have age
diverse networks then gender diverse
networks before they are going to likely
to have diversity in terms of the
opinions of other people that they speak
with we are least likely to see earth
nicly diverse networks within the
British public
another thing we found was those within
the age group of 40 to 59 are the people
who are most likely to only speak to
other people who share the same opinions
as themselves so if any of you know
someone who’s about to turn 40 then wish
them luck because they’re about to enter
into the most the biggest echo chamber
of their of their life so far we also
know that women are more concerned about
global poverty than men are and those
who are younger are more likely to be
concerned that those who are older but
how does all this matter to go back to
the original question and to think about
how these things influence how wide our
circle of compassion is so first of all
what widens our circle of compassion
firstly your circle of compassion will
be wider if you are concerned about
global poverty that stands to reason we
knew that already and it stands up and
it holds your circle of compassion will
also be wider if you are younger as
opposed to being older but interestingly
your circle of compassion will be wider
if you are male than if you are female
for any given level
of concern so how do the social networks
matter well firstly if you discuss the
issue with a more giant gender diverse
group so if you identify as female and
you speak with men or males and or vice
versa you are more likely to have a
wider circle of compassion and we might
want to think about different
sociological explanations of why this
might be may be its openness to
diversity different views of compassion
etc expands our horizons I have a friend
he’s worked in global poverty for many
many years very committed and he offered
another more personal take on this and
he said David I can tell you how I got
into it there was the two girls I
fancied the most and they joined Amnesty
International so I joined Amnesty
International too so there’s that but
finally in terms of our attitudinal
diversity if you speak with other people
you have a lower level of concern about
global poverty than you do it’s going to
shrink your circle of compassion they
affect your circle and vice versa if you
have a low level of concern about global
poverty but you are speaking with other
people who have higher levels then your
circle of compassion will expand and get
larger so it matters who we speak to and
what their attitudes are I spend my days
researching in to why people get more or
less engaged with global poverty or
indeed one of the political drivers that
help reduce poverty expand people’s
freedoms and improve people’s life
overseas but I totally accept that not
everybody shares those priorities and
that is absolutely fine but here’s the
deal
the late great Brian Clough was being
interviewed by Michael Parkinson and
Parkinson asking the question he said
what do you do when one of your players
disagrees with you and says boss I think
you’re doing it wrong and cliff replied
well I asked him how he thinks it should
be done then we get down to it we talk
for 20 minutes and then we decide I was
right
the good news is we are not all brian
clough that we can and we do change our
opinion about global poverty and how
wide our circle of compassion should be
and actually it’s the people our friends
and family that we talk to that
influence this and similarly in talking
to our friends and family we can also
influence their attitudes and their
circle of compassion thank you
[Applause]
you
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