SELF CRITICAL

The Paired Statements for Self Critical:

“It is really hard for me to accept myself once I’ve messed up.
I can’t stop criticising myself for negative thing I’ve felt, thought, said or done.”

Figure 1. SELF CRITICAL espousers

Demographically this is skewed to females; fairly equal among all age groups with a slight over-index in the 35-44s; significantly over-indexed among the DEs and under-indexed among the ABs.

70% of the UK population agrees with these statement to a greater or lesser extent – only 30% say this is not like them.

The positioning of the Attribute near the centre of the Values space is a first indicator that it is likely to be shared by all three Maslow Groups; i.e. not particularly skewed to one or other of the different systems of values. As an indicator of a shared approach to life this Attribute is a broad level indicator of a portion of the British population.

Espousing the Self Critical Attribute correlates with other Attributes that contribute to a feeling of being stuck in a search for purpose in life. These espousers are more than twice as likely as the rest of the population to agree they feel stuck in their journey through life. Their feelings of not being good enough can contribute to a feeling of stasis in a fluid personal and cultural context.

In their profile it is clear that their feelings are more important to them, rather than a hard analysis of facts, when it comes judging themselves. Emotions are more important to them – being 52% more likely than others to agree that they are strongly affected by emotional situations. Having strong emotions is not in itself necessarily a bad thing - being sensitive can be a strong predictor of creativity and strong leadership. But when combined with a range of ‘less positive’ Attributes, it can lead to a rather more uncomfortable result.

Reinforcing this dynamic is their high espousal (48% more likely than the population) of the Searching Attribute. This can be seen as a critical factor in their view of life. They are people who are looking for their life-purpose and feel they are coming up short. It causes them to feel that they are trapped by their expectations. They blame themselves for their failure to find their purpose. For the most part they take personal responsibility for their thoughts and actions – which is a big factor in British identity - but feel they are not performing up to scratch.

In today’s Britain there are many who feel like this - but it is also true that many of them have found personal strategies to get themselves out of their feelings of negative self-worth. This is often no more than a good session of being talked to by a best friend, or even a sharing of self-doubts and worries with a supportive group of acquaintances.

After well over a year of Covid induced social changes, some of these opportunities and occasions have been curtailed - with significant implications for the Self Critical espousers.

When Self Critical people are in Covid lockdowns, or working from home, these opportunities - often no more than casual conversations with friends or groups in the workplace, just do not occur. Because they are 55% more likely than the population to rank the Reserved Attribute in their top three over-indexed selections they are less likely than other people to seek out or plan for situations where they can discuss their feelings.

Work situations have not been ‘normal’, or even the prospect of returning to normal. The prospect of remote working with limited personal contacts is continuing to become a real option for many employers. This is likely to present barriers to many of these Self Critical people from breaking their cycle of negative thinking.

With more time at home it is theoretically possible to replace work-based engagements with more contact in their local community, neighbourhood, or next- door neighbours. But their over-indexing (146, or 46% more than the national figure) on the Solitary Attribute would seem to mitigate this option. Their values-system driven behaviours just amplify their lack of presence in their neighbourhood and easy access to others with whom they could talk. They also exhibit a lower propensity to join a crowd - where chance encounters could occur.

A picture of a troubled, insular, sensitive group of people is true as far as it goes but understanding this portrait is not complete with out the last factor in their ‘hot half dozen’ over indexed Attributes.

Part of their journey of searching for their purpose in life is the awareness of and desire for a more just world.

They could be seen as doubting, withdrawn people, not concerned with the world around them. This is unlikely to be true. They are more likely to be concerned about injustices in the world – but feel disempowered to change the circumstances.

Conclusion:

Many within the UK, and 28% of the most likely to agree with Self Critical statements, feel trapped by their cycles of behaviour and thought - cycles that prevent them from using their reasoning to search for higher purposes in an optimal manner.


This is the big-picture view so let’s look the Maslow Group breakdown.

Maslow group Population (base) % Attribute % Index
Pioneers 37.7 37.8 100
Prospectors 36.8 34.5 94
Settlers 25.5 27.7 109


None of the Groups are significantly differentiated at a 99% or 95% level. But taking each of Maslow Groups separately reveals some distinct similarities and differences between the values-systems.


Figure 2. SELF CRITICAL espousers - Pioneers

The only demographic differentiation is between the genders – females are over-indexed. There are no significant differences by age or socio-economic group.

Only two of the most correlated Attributes generally associated with Self Critical are contained in the Pioneer profile – Stuck and Justice – two very different things.

Stuck is the most highly correlated Attribute within the Self Critical ‘hot half dozen’. The high index indicates that the combination of Self Critical and Stuck is likely to lead to relative inaction in the face of the types of questions and issues these confront – especially the ‘big question’ , like “What is my purpose in life?”

These are the type of questions that the Pioneers are a whole are more likely to feel are ‘important’ compared to other values-sets.

For instance, the Pioneers are 32% more likely to espouse Justice – but they are 86% likely to espouse Justice than the population as a whole.

Though Self Critical they are concerned about questions of freedom and equality for all, they have not retreated into an isolated and insular mind-set.

They are aware not only to injustices in a legal or cultural sense, but also to the direct problems of poverty on a global scale, and a belief that richer nations should do more to help less advantaged countries and their people.

They are open to the idea that people and policy makers living in the UK may not have the answers to the problems of other indigenous populations, believing that they themselves have a lot to learn from other cultures. They are 61% more likely than the population to believe this. They are unlikely to feel that a dispassionate view from a distance is the best way of understanding and solving the problems of others unlike themselves. They are the most likely people in the UK to be happy to live in a multicultural community.

This form of global awareness and personalization is typical of their holistic response to big issues - which is also manifested in their acceptance of personal response to issues of global environmental change. They are 57% more likely to believe humanity has behaved in way that has harmed the Earth’s environment, and that we should all take responsibility for saving the environment, beginning with themselves.

Rather than being a group of values-driven activists their high index on Self Critical leads them to adopt a more ‘live and let live’ approach to life. While Pioneers as a whole are most likely to strive for social change, the Self Critical espousing Pioneers may not be so likely to be leading progressive changes, but they will be among the passive supporters who lend support to the, sometimes, more extreme behaviours of others.

Self Critical Pioneers do not immediately react negatively when others break social norms or rules and regulations. They believe that others have their own opinions and self-agency, and a responsibility to their values to express them - even if they are different from their own. This relaxed approach to life can cause as much concern as it does satisfaction among the Self Critical espousers.

Conclusions:

The result of these Pioneers' Self Criticism is not a ‘return to the womb’ denial of the complexity of the worl; rather it is a slowing down of their ‘received world’, the world they were taught would provide them with answers to big questions. Their self doubt, though perhaps excessively harsh, is placed healthily within a context of often ambiguous and complex questions about the nature of their place in a very changeable world of meaning.


Let's look at the Prospectors


Figure 3. SELF CRITICAL espousers - Prospectors

Demographically these Prospectors are over-indexed amongst females and the 25-44s, but under-indexed amongst the over 65s. There is no significant skew by class (socio-economic group).

These Self Critical Prospectors share three over-indexed Attributes with the overall segment. They are almost twice as likely as the rest of British society to espouse Stuck; 65% more likely to be Searching for their purpose in life; and 56% more likely to agree they are affected by emotional situations.

They tend to denigrate themselves for their inabilities to affect the course of their own life’s journey of discovery. Feeling stuck, they may question rationality as a method of discovering the truths they need to find. It is highly likely they will seek answers that ‘feel good’, rather than being satisfied with others’ received wisdom, evidence-based opinion, or other similar ‘rational’ conclusions.

Though over-indexing in Searching for a purpose in life - being 65% higher than the rest of the population on this measure - it is likely they will find purpose in very different way compared to other Maslow Groups.

Prospector values-systems prioritize external validations of their accomplishments; and the Self Critical Prospectors are no different - but they have a more negative view of how they are doing in satisfying their needs.

Looking Good is important to them to a greater extent than it is to other Maslow Groups. They want to make good impressions on others. One of the measures of ‘looking good’ is checking themselves in the mirror before going out, or going to meetings. It is more likely among the Self Critical espousers that the image they perceive in the mirror is not the image they would ideally like to see.

Similarly Show Home is high in their rankings, and they are 47% more likely than the population to espouse it. But as with Looking Good they are likely to be either frustrated or disappointed at the way their home looks – or be unsure of what others think of their home.

Perhaps the biggest key to their frustration represented in the high espousal of Self Critical is their attitude about ‘getting ahead’. They are 44% more likely to espouse the Ambitious Attribute than others. Achieving great things is important to them – the mundane and everyday is not sufficient to satisfying them. They are ambitious and, for them, success is a bottom line - a necessity, not a ‘nice-to-have’ option. This is laudable in itself, but when combined with being self-critical it can be toxic to the self-perception of these Prospectors.

Conclusions:

The basic needs of some Prospectors are being stymied by their espousal of the Self Critical Attribute – especially three highly correlated Attributes: Stuck, Searching and Sensitive. Their negative self-image clashes with their desires for positive displays of material success, and social displays that will be the envy of others.


Our final Maslow Group espouser of Self Critical are, of course, the Settlers and we will see that they look and feel truly uncomfortable.


Figure 4. SELF CRITICAL espousers - Settlers


Demographically these Settlers are over-indexed in the 45-64s and the DEs. They are underindexed in the 22-34s and ABs. There is no significant difference between the genders.

The Self Criticism espousing Settlers only share one of the hot half dozen Attributes with the overall espousal profile. As with others, they over-index on the Stuck Attribute. Indeed, they are the most likely to do so, at almost two and half times more than the UK population. Other analysis of the Stuck Attribute shows Settlers as a whole index at 122. Though the index is higher than the other Maslow Groups, it is significantly less than the Self Critical Settlers - who index at 247.

The intensity of these two Attributes in combination is a major driver in the well-established Settler dynamic that leads them to be slower to change their attitudes and behaviours than the other values groups.

They are likely to be loners in their social life – not being engaged with group activities in their own communities. They believe that others don’t recognize them in the street, just as they don’t recognize others.

This feeling of isolation may be amplified by various Covid policies and behaviours – this is a new Attribute and we have no pre-Covid benchmark – but it is likely that much of the isolation is a part of their approach to life. The Settlers are the most likely only to have between 0 to 3 friends (index 131) with the Self Critical Settlers 43% more likely than everyone else to have such a small number of friends.

As noted in the opening section of this analysis, the tendencies associated with the Self Critical Attribute can be alleviated by social interactions that, pre-Covid, would have seemed normal. Opportunities for ‘best friends’ to let these people vent, or just lay-out their worries, over a glass of wine or pint of beer after work, would often have interrupted their negative cycles of thought and behaviour.

At other times, activities that don’t depend on close friends - like casual conversations, or group meetings at work - could spark off ideas that disrupt negative patterns of self -assessment.

In today’s culture of furlough, masking (preventing reading of micro-expressions), social distancing and home working with only electronic comms (from email and telephone to social media and platforms like Zoom or Teams) the probability of these casual or chance encounters is vastly reduced or eliminated entirely. It is likely that some of the mental problems highlighted by social services and the media are connected to these espousers.

Like other Settlers, the Self Critical Settler perceives more threats in their environment than other Groups. Settlers, as a whole, are 40% more likely than the population to be afraid to go out in their own neighbourhood at night, and to be worried about threats not just to themselves but the security of nation, whether the threats be internal or external. This figure rises to 85% among the Settler Self Critical espouser. With the absence of a friendly voice to allay their fears they are likely to create, in their own minds, a world full of existential dangers on multiple levels.

Their degree of fear is matched by their level of pessimism – the expectation nothing will change in the future. It is likely they will examine each issue they confront and attempt to analyse it to find a way to ‘fit-in’ (a very Settler definition of success) , but they are influenced by the biases built up by their values that keeps bringing them back to their own sense of powerlessness. It is likely that they wouldn’t characterize themselves as pessimistic as much as they would label themselves ‘realistic’. Their values position leads them to notice the contentious or negative parts of the ‘news’ or social media posts. Being aware of the dangers just reinforces their fears and the resulting self-perception as realistic - and expecting the worst; i.e. “I’m no fool and am prepared for things others don’t yet see”.

The final two over-indexed Attributes - Disciple and Acquiescence - present further perspectives on this type of Settler espousers.

Self-reinforcing cycles of negative thoughts about themselves and the world around them, likely self-defined as realistic, leads them believe that criminals (people who present threats to them) should be harshly punished to teach them a lesson not to do the crime again. They also believe that children need strict discipline because “it’s in the child’s best-interest”. Settlers are most likely to agree with these ideas (indexing at 162) but the Self Critical Settlers are over twice as likely as others (index 212) to have this world view.

Their fear generates a desire for reprisals against those who they believe ‘causes their fear‘. When they think about their ‘pessimistic future’, they take the long view that preventing criminality is the key to a better future; and the best way of achieving this is make sure children don’t grow up to be criminals. The obvious way is through harsh punishments for children who break the rules. These Settlers will agree with the old saw, “spare the rod and spoil the child”, implying that a non-disciplined child is a ‘spoiled child’; i.e. the natural state for children is to be obedient, and too much freedom will lead to damaged goods.

The Self Critical Settler has these firm beliefs that many others feel are old-fashioned (a legacy of a more Settler-dominated world) and feel like something of a threat to liberal attitudes enshrined in various social and legal frameworks and policies.

But liberal values are not under attack to the extent many in the media would have us believe. Settlers are in the minority in the UK culture but ,more significantly, the Self Critical Settlers holding ill-liberal orientations also over-index on another factor of pessimism and disengagement with the body politic.

Settlers are the most likely Group to become passive in the face of adversity – believing they don’t have much hope in life and as a result nothing much excites them. This is not a profile that matches political activists – people with a hope or wish for a ‘better tomorrow‘ and are excited about the possibilities that present themselves daily and hourly. Remember, a better tomorrow is subjective, and in accordance with individual values. The Settlers’ version of a better tomorrow is one in which criminals are punished and children are raised under strict discipline; when a ‘Copper’ can give a child a ‘clip round the ear’ole’ for a misdeneamor.

Settlers are most likely to over-index on the Acquiescence Attribute (index 138), and the Self Critical espousing Settlers even higher at 182 – 82% more likely than the British population.

So, even though they can express some pretty harsh judgements about others, they are unlikely to do much about it. They are more likely to mumble opinions from the fringes than to drive change from the centre.

Conclusions:

These are Settlers having a hard time. Considering themselves realists, they are set apart from their neighbours and community by their self-doubts. Inclined to be solitary, many of their self-doubts become amplified in the absence of friends and casual acquaintances. Displaying more fears than most, they tend to lean towards more authoritarian responses to issues of social disruption – from child rearing practices to penal practices – that appear positively Victorian in our late Elizabethan culture of the 2020’s.