The Psychology of Brexit (eBook)

Acknowledgements 7
Also by Brian M. Hughes 9
Contents 10
1 Brexit as Psychodrama 11
The Psychologising of Brexit 13
Empire 2.0 14
From Self-Regard to Self-Loathing 17
From Self-Loathing to Self-Abuse 18
A Scientific Psychology of Brexit 20
Psychodrama Under the Microscope 22
The Problem of Improbability 24
The Problem of Easily Remembered Examples 27
The Problem of Counterexamples 28
The Problem of Simpler Explanations 29
The Real Psychology of Brexit 30
2 Reasoning Through Brexit 33
I. Decisions, Decisions 33
That Is the Question 34
The Age of Ill-Reason 36
Brexit Means… 38
This Message Will Self-Destruct… 40
It’s (Not) the Economy, Stupid 42
Silver-Medal Anxiety 44
Complex Numbers 47
II. A Brain Made for Taking Shortcuts 48
Rules of Thumb: Free-Flowing Memories 49
Rules of Thumb: Anchors Ahoy! 53
Rules of Thumb: Give It to Me Exactly… 55
Rules of Thumb: What’s Mine Is, Well, Mine 56
Peer Pressure: Nothing to Lose but Your Sense of Perspective 59
Peer Pressure: Truthiness 63
Problems of Rose-Tinted Glasses: Everything Is Awesome 65
Problems of Rose-Tinted Glasses: Everything Is Under Control 69
Problems of Rose-Tinted Glasses: It’s Not Me, It’s You 70
People and Their Feelings 71
3 The Brexit People 74
I. One Size Does Not Fit All 74
Know Your Audience 76
Personality Goes a Long Way 79
Enough of Experts 83
Take Me to Your Leader 85
II. Groups Matter 89
The Hive Mind 90
Echo, Echo 91
Poles Apart 93
Deal or No Deal: Parliamentarians as Prisoners 97
Identify Yourself 101
The Point of It All 104
4 Brexit Anxiety 106
I. On Brexit as a Cause of Mental Illness 106
Land of No Hope and Glory 108
Our Survey Says 109
Need More Data 113
Drug Machine 115
Economic Instability Is Bad for Mental Health 117
II. On Mental Illness as a Cause of Brexit 119
The Insanity Offence 120
The Pathologising of Politics, and the Politicising of Pathology 122
The New Normal 124
A Case Study in How to Cause Stress 126
5 Learning from Brexit 130
I. Brexit Perspectives 130
Respect for Authority 132
None but the Righteous 134
Beware the Illusion of Perspective 136
Return to Psychodrama 140
Not just Britain 142
The Irish Question(s) 144
‘Why Haven’t They Left Yet?’ 146
II. Ten Lessons from the Psychology of Brexit 149
Lesson 1: Ignore the Psychodrama, but Learn from History 149
Lesson 2: Mental Autonomy Is a Tempting and Consoling Bias—People Are More Influenced by Situational Factors and Consensus Than They Realise 151
Lesson 3: The ‘Will of the People’ Has Poor Construct Validity 152
Lesson 4: People Make Partisan Decisions, but Systematically Overestimate Their Own Logic and Soundness 153
Lesson 5: Everything Is Social 154
Lesson 6: Groups Descend Quickly into Vicious Cycles of Polarisation 155
Lesson 7: When Game Theory Ensures that Everybody Loses, Stop Playing 156
Lesson 8: A Conscientious Administration Will Prepare for Mental Health Consequences 157
Lesson 9: A Conscientious Administration Will Go to Effort to Reduce Situational Risk Factors 158
Lesson 10: Brexit Is Psychological, Not Political 159
References 162
Index 186