Immigrants quickly think like the British
A COMMON FEAR in many Western countries that immigrants have fundamentally different ways of thinking, and that these differences prevent integration, are misplaced, says a recent study into cultural variations in thinking styles.
Researchers led by Professor Alex Mesoudi of the University of Exeter administered psychological tests designed to measure culturally variable psychological processes to 286 Londoners. These included first generation British Bangladeshis born and raised in Bangladesh, second generation British Bangladeshis born and raised in the UK to first generation parents, as well as non-migrants, born and raised in the UK to UK-born parents of European heritage. “We found that British Bangladeshi migrants in East London shifted towards the thinking styles of the wider non-migrant population in just a single generation,” says Professor Mesoudi. “This finding that British Bangladeshi immigrants substantially acculturate to local thinking styles in one generation suggests that fears over a lack of immigrant integration may be unfounded.” “Our results show that thinking styles are not fixed from birth,” he says. “This supports the idea that our species evolved to be highly flexible and can rapidly adopt the local norms and values – and in this case, thinking styles – of our social environments: we adapt and vary culturally through peer interactions, schooling, or mass media messages, rather than genetically.” n
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Contact Dr Alex Mesoudi, University of Exeter Email
a.mesoudi@
exeter.ac.uk Telephone 01326 253712 Web
www.thinkingstylesproject.com ESRC Grant Number ES/J01916X
Public sector ombudsmen need to earn consumer trust
recent figures still point to some 18 million problems a year. A 2017 EU report finds the cost to consumers of such problems across Europe could be £51 billion.
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Ombudsman schemes give consumers free, accessible and informal methods to resolve disputes with public bodies or businesses. But the public has mixed views on how well ombudsmen are measuring up and ombudsmen schemes could better respond to users and do more to improve the consumer experience, says a new three-year study. Findings show that half of some 3,000 recent users of ombudsmen in the UK, France and Germany expressed confidence in the process. But satisfaction rates between private and public sector ombudsmen revealed a stark divide. In the UK, respondents in public schemes were far less likely than those in private schemes to be satisfied with how their cases were dealt with: almost 60% claimed to be ‘very dissatisfied’.
8 SOCIETY NOW WINTER 2018
OST CONSUMERS in the UK purchase goods and services with confidence, but the most
Respondents reported a favourable outcome for only 11% of public cases, compared to 53% of private cases. Moreover, while 56% of UK respondents would recommend private sector ombudsmen to others, 52% of the public users would not. The research further showed that
peoples’ expectations of ombudsmen were generally too high or they simply did not know what to expect. Satisfaction was more likely when certain key criteria, such as giving people the chance to voice their story, were met. “The data suggests that if user expectations were managed better at first contact and appropriate forms of communication are maintained throughout the complaint journey, then people know what to expect and this makes acceptance of the outcome more likely,” explains researcher Dr Naomi Creutzfeldt. n
i Contact Dr Naomi Creutzfeldt, Law School,
University of Westminster, London Email
n.creutzfeldt@
westminster.ac.uk Telephone 0207 911 5000 Web
www.law.ox.ac.uk/trusting-middle-man- impact-and-legitimacy-ombudsmen-europe ESRC Grant Number ES/K00820X/2
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