Saturday 10 December 2011

Christmas a Time of Hope.


Christmas is above all a time of hope. It is the darkest, coldest and most miserable time of the year in the northern hemisphere. In ancient times the winter solstice was celebrated as the time when daylight begins to lengthen and the prospect of Spring seems not too far distant. It was this time that the early Christian Church chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus although his actual birth was probably in Spring time. The Church chose wisely for it is at the darkest times that hope means most of all: when all the natural world seems to be cold and dead.
The Star of Bethlehem has, in a sense, only a bit part in the Christmas story it guides the wise men and the shepherds but its significance is much greater than that. The star is a symbol of hope in a dark and brutal world ,as dark then as it is now: a time of the massacre of the Holy Innocents by the brutal Herod. Yet the wise men followed the star in hope and so too did the shepherds. In a time when Christmas can be about so much less, about materialism, gluttony and greed; all that the babe of Bethlehem stood against, it is well to remember the star that shone in hope above the simple stable yard.
There is some cause for hope in that a recent survey by the Institute of Marketing found that hard times have had a major effect upon people's values they are:
1. a profound need for hope;
2. a sense of post-materialism;
3. a focus on people and things closest to us;
4. the comfort of ritual; and
5. the idea of the rewards of practicality, planning and hard work.

So, people want to hope - to believe in a better future, a long term vision of a society where people have common values which focus on each other rather than on 'things'. Help with our communities and kindness and generosity shown to each other and a concern for family and those closest to us which Christmas renews. Even when we are beset by hardship, illness and all the troubles of everyday life we can hope in time, "all will be well and all manner of things shall be well."

Sunday 4 December 2011

Get Your Swagger On this Christmas!

How to Enjoy Yourself at Christmas...

It's a fact that some of us find Christmas parties and socialising a bore and a pain. We really can't be bothered making the effort to mix with people we don't know and would much rather be at home with our families. In fact, psychologists have shown, if people are asked to choose whether to spend time chatting to a friend or a stranger they will usually choose the friend: no surprise there then.However, we actually get far more satisfaction from talking to a stranger -why ?


Talking to strangers is more fun than we predict because showing off makes us feel good.When you chat to someone you know well it's comfortable, relaxed and familiar—with a friend we know what we're getting. With a stranger, though, anything could happen.

The problem with strangers is that we have to make more of an effort: psychologists call it 'impression management'. With friends we can 'be ourselves', which means letting it all hang out; but with strangers we control our behaviour more tightly and our impression management goes into overdrive.

It's this effort and stress of controlling ourselves with strangers that puts us off and why sometimes we can't be bothered and sulk in a corner while everybody else seems to be having a good time. But according to recent research there are hidden benefits to this effort and a lesson for all of us about how we (should) treat those we know well.

Get your swagger on

In their research Dunn et al. (2007) had participants in long-term relationships predict how pleasurable it would be to interact with:

Their partner.
An opposite sex stranger.
They then had a quick chat and rated how good they felt afterwards. What they found was that people enjoyed talking to their romantic partner less than they predicted. On the other hand they had more fun talking to a stranger than they had predicted.

So what's going on here? How can people be having more fun than they imagine talking to complete strangers and less with the person they are in a long-term relationship with?

What the researchers found was that it comes down to whether or not you're making an effort. Sometimes when we talk to our friends and partners we don't make much of an effort to entertain them, show off or to present ourselves in the best light. But we do tend to make more of an effort with strangers.

In a follow-up study the researchers told participants to make an effort with their partners and then their enjoyment of the social interaction improved in line with their predictions. This suggests we can all have more fun with our partners and friends if we make an effort.

There's a fascinating point that comes out of this research. When we predict how fun talking to a stranger will be, we fail to factor in the extra effort we make. But when we think about our partners we fail to factor in how lazy we tend to be.

There are two morals to this story: the sad but unsurprising fact that we take our partners and friends for granted and the less intuitive idea that strangers are more fun than we imagine because showing off makes us feel good.So, when it comes to party time get that swagger going and make the effort!