Opinion: The Scottish question

I used to have a Scottish passport. I was about nine at the time and, though the memory is a little hazy, I swear it had a smart navy cover embossed with a thistle. To enhance the Celtic authenticity, the front also featured Nessie, bagpipes and a haggis, rendered as if in the wild. The Scottish passport was a much more distinguished document than my current British one; its provenance, from a shop selling Jaws mirrors and ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ statuettes only adding to its allure. Its primary disadvantage, failing to facilitate foreign travel, seemed negligible. Such were the shortcomings of laying claim to a Scottish, rather than a British, nationality. However, according to the SNP Scottish Executive, the limited functionality of a Scottish passport, and a good many other problems besides, may be remedied by a ‘Yes’ vote in the independence referendum on 18 September this year.

There is certainly romance in the Scottish cause, which has, through Jacobite rebellions and devolution referenda, been simmering pretty much from the moment of union in 1707. I don’t propose to get into that here. And, though the issues at stake (currency, EU membership and management of natural resources) are undoubtedly important, let’s also leave those to one side. Rather, I’d like to think a little about which psychological process may inform my compatriots’ decision to stay or go.

I’m often struck when hearing political professionals talk (see the New Yorker 2008 debate, referenced below), that they frequently describe votes in simple terms: as either being for change, or for the status quo. All the other complicated arguments basically get pulled in to bolster one or other position. Such a binary choice is even starker in a referendum. Arguing either the need for a new broom, or that we are safer as we are, is hugely influential on tactics. It means that the job of Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond is to damn the Act of Union as the root of all ills, from lost oil revenues to a national inferiority complex. He also has to tell us how wonderful the alternative Scandinavian-style state would be with a cosmopolitan culture and a permanent leftie government. (Scotland only has one Tory MP.) Alistair Darling and the Better Together campaign must conversely inform the electorate of the economic apocalypse independence would likely cause, and emphasise Scotland’s general too-smallness to hack it alone in a world of bigger states. Painting a rosy picture of the Union might be a bit more difficult as it has been knocking around for three hundred years and, as we know, the grass is always greener. 

The idea that politicians deal in self-serving simplifications, talk down the opposition and make unrealistic promises should not come as a huge surprise to anyone. A more interesting question is why such tactics are effective. A partial answer, observed by psychologists of many stripes, concerns our human tendencies to see the world in somewhat polarised terms, and to seek others to blame when things go wrong. 

Recognition of such thinking is a significant part of many clinical models of distress. Cognitive behavioural therapy captures some measure of our propensity to be black and white, all or nothing, and for our moods to be affected by extreme internal rules and by unhelpful attributions of blame. It’s psychodynamic theories though, that really chime in with our political selves. The splitting of the  world into good and bad Objects (Melanie Klein’s good and bad breasts), is absolutely fundamental to ideas of defence against painful feelings (see Lemma’s 2003 account of defence mechanisms). Once split, our feelings can be projected into another person or group who become idealised or hated. Think we’re not all capable of this? Ask yourself what you observed when Margaret Thatcher died. I argued at the time (McGowan, 2013), that the extreme reactions this prompted, even among the middle-aged and mild-mannered, were very much in line with the idea of primitive defence like splitting. Maggie was either Britannia or the Wicked Witch, and the 1980s held up as either national redemption or the end of civilisation as we knew it. 

One of the jobs of a psychotherapist is to help us recognise and tolerate shades of grey. Rules need not be absolute. People aren’t totally good or bad. In our politics though, we often fail to obtain such restraining counsels. That the tendency to blame and find scapegoats extends to groups as well as individuals has been well researched in social psychology, at least since the 1930s (e.g. Dollard et al., 1939). We may experience an increased tendency to blame others on the basis of religion, skin colour, sexual identity, nationality or other factors that imply difference or that someone is out of our group. More recent studies, such Poppe’s (2001) survey of attitudes during a period of economic decline in Eastern Europe suggest that, when times get tough, views about those outside central cultural groups can become sharply more negative. 

Scapegoating other groups has ugly connotations and may be more commonly associated with racist groups or political parties, such as UKIP, which have been explicitly set up for protest. The SNP is clearly less xenophobic than the UKippers, but there are in the position of encouraging some of the same psychological process. The Sassenachs need to be seen as the source of Scotland's troubles in order to be cut loose. The blaming of the outgroup however, is somewhat gentler with the SNP than with parties like UKIP, partly because they are in a classic political dilemma: wanting to blame someone else for what goes wrong but also encumbered with actual power. The SNP have genuine executive authority and need to be seen as credible big shots, responsible for successful policies and speaking for their whole nation. Of course, being in charge also leaves you in the firing line for failure. The time-honoured tactic in this situation is to blame the previous government. Though there are limits to how much a politician can palm it all off on the last lot, a really skilled one can manage it many times before the gig is up. In the case of Scotland there is an additional sucker to blame: the Westminster government. Alex Salmond has managed to do this quite brilliantly and deserves the epithet most frequently attached to him: canny. (His enemies more pejoratively describe him as wily.)

All of which brings us to the possible outcome in September. How will it turn out? I don’t know, but I do know what may influence it. It was Bill Clinton who pointed to the centrality of economic factors in all elections, to which I’d add even elections that seem to be about nationalism, history and pride. For all Alex Salmond’s cunning, the majority of Scots at present seem reluctant to blame the Union for their woes, or at least to blame it enough to vote for independence. If the current prediction of economic recovery is borne out it’s hard to see this position changing and I’d have my money on the Better Together campaign. However, if the economy tanks again, the search for scapegoats will be on in earnest. If that happens I think I’ll skip the visit to the bookies as the outcome is anyone’s guess. Could the Scots go? If they decide to blame the bad times on the Auld Enemy you just watch them. 

I might just go and see if I can find my haggis passport. Just in case.

Later this year the Scottish people will go to the polls and determine whether Scotland will maintain its place in the United Kingdom or part ways with the Union and begin life as an independent nation. Clearly, the social and political consequences of this vote will be far-reaching, and so understanding the factors that will determine the referendum outcome is of considerable importance. Perhaps unsurprisingly, nearly all media coverage appears to centre on the geo-political issues: much North Sea black gold and political clout (such as EU membership) is at stake! But psychological factors are also known to influence political attitudes, and there is no reason to believe that Scottish independence is much different in this regard. With this in mind, can psychological theory and research contribute to an understanding of the Scottish referendum? 

Graeme Brown and I were intrigued by this possibility and set about collecting data shortly after the referendum was announced in the autumn of 2012 to explore how psychological factors might predict independence sentiment. A set of moral values scales recently developed by Jon Haidt and colleagues were of particular interest to us as they have previously been shown to predict political orientation. These moral values tap preferences for minimising harms/maximising fairness (often termed ‘individualising’), and concerns over group norms and rules (often termed ‘binding’). Previous work perhaps confirms intuition: higher individualising and lower binding tend to predict those who identify with the political left. 

We felt that this specific moral lexicon had considerable value as a means to characterise the psychological aspects of the Scottish independence movement. Nationalism is often noted to reflect right-wing characteristics; however, Scottish nationalism has typically been regarded as a left-wing movement. This gives rise to some interesting possible associations between preferences for independence and these moral values. On the one hand, if one considers desire for independence within the typical psychological analysis of nationalism (i.e. as a right-wing phenomenon), one would predict that higher concern for group norms (binding) and less concern for social justice (individualising) would predict the preference for Scotland to leave the Union. Conversely, if the preference for independence reflects the desire to generate a more left-wing political state, one would make the reverse predictions; namely, lower binding and higher individualising predicting desire for independence. Finally, one might expect that desire for independence might be more nuanced still, perhaps reflecting aspects of right-wing sentiment (e.g. concern for group cohesion and authority, coupled with heightened concerns over social justice).

So what did the data say? In short, higher individualising and lower binding significantly predicted independence sentiment. In other words, stronger moral sentiment for valuing individual rights and less concern for group norms and traditions appear to independently drive preferences for Scottish independence. These results are consistent with the common perception of Scotland as a left-wing nation. Moreover, these results suggest that those in favour of Scottish independence sit to the left of the political spectrum on at least two distinct components, demonstrating the importance of exploring this issue from multiple psychological vantage points.

What do these findings have to say about predicting the results of the referendum? Firstly, moral sentiment may provide a fairly decent barometer to the outcome of the vote on 18 September. Such results also suggest that political party appeals of a particular nature may be of special salience in this debate. For example, emphasising the possibilities that independence may bring for enhancing social justice may aid the SNP in confirming the support of those voters who highly value individualising. Of course, the reverse possibility also exists: those who favour maintaining the Union might choose to highlight to high individualisers that a larger union could better support a generous social welfare programme. At this stage the politics can become rather messy!

To close, while the economic and political issues surrounding Scottish independence will likely rule the media and politicians’ agendas for much of this debate, psychological factors should not be ignored, at least not by those who are seeking to understand the forces that drive individuals to one or the other side of the fence. Humans certainly vote selectively in order to secure their economic future; but they also care very deeply about their social institutions and how these institutions operate – albeit often in markedly different ways from each other – and these sentiments will almost certainly feed into any decision concerning the future of one’s nation.

References

Dollard, J. et al. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Lemma. A. (2003). Defences and resistance. In A. Lemma (Ed.) Introduction to the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy (pp.200–229). London: Wiley. 

McGowan, J. (2013, 15 April). We can’t let Maggie go [blog post]. Discursive of Tunbridge Wells. Retrieved from http://discursiveoftunbridgewells.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/we-cant-let-maggie-go.html

Poppe, E. (2001). Effects of changes in GNP and perceived group characteristics on national and ethnic stereotypes in Central and Eastern Europe. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 1689–1708.

The New Yorker (2008, 6 October). Donna Brazile: ‘If I were running this campaign’ . Retrieved from www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/festival/2008/10/brazile-campaign.html