Posts Tagged ‘Pat Dade’

What makes people tick, by Chris Rose

23/10/2011, 12:00:44 PM

by Anthony Painter

It has been clear for some time that class-based models of political behaviour have weakened to the point of uselessness. The question is what to replace them with. Human beings are not just a set of individuals impervious to external influence. In fact, we are deeply influenced in ways that we don’t realise. It turns out that that what drives us is values.

Values are the deep undercurrents of individual motivation. They heavily influence our shopping habits, our choice of partner, our cultural interests, our work, and our politics. We don’t just wake up one day and decide that we are going to hold a certain set of values. It is something which occurs in response to our needs. If we are hungry then our values will gear us towards abating our hunger. If we need the esteem of others then our values will guide us in that direction. And if we need to attain ethical wisdom then that is what we will spend our time doing.

It is these deep values that Chris Rose explains in this powerful and exciting look at what makes humans tick. Maslow was right: we do have a hieracrchy of needs and this book presents the evidence behind the theory. It is built around decades worth of data about values and value shifts in society. The evidence base comes from a guy called Pat Dade who runs a company called Cultural Dynamics. I’ve met Pat on a number occasions and he is one of the most inspirational people I’ve come across in my professional life. This book explains his life’s work. Anyone engaged in politics, business, human association of any kind who hasn’t read this book is missing the full picture. It’s all in here.

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