Negative campaigning, the Tories favourite...
Opening the festival was Annemarie, discussing the topic of Negative Campaigning: Does it help or does it hurt? Warning: this talk contain mentions of Donal Trump.
Negative campaigning is any criticism of your opponent, be it personal or political. Negative campaigning is aimed at your opponent and is meant to turn people away from them. For example, during last year's general election, the Conservative party depicted Labour as being a puppet of the SNP. On the other hand, positive campaigning is used to strengthen the feelings of those who already support you through praising your own policies and personality. We were asked the question, to what extent are politicians attacked by their rivals? Who is running the clean campaign?
There have been a number of factors that have led to the proliferation of negative campaigning, including the professionalization of election campaigning, the changing context of elections and increased mediatisation. Basically, negative campaigning sells. In fact, it's not really a new thing, it has always been part of politics, it's just become more visible now. As far back as 1964, Lyndon B Johnson was running a negative ad in the US. Although, as we've seen in the last UK general election and the recent London mayoral election, it's not just an American phenomenon.
There is no empirical evidence that negative campaigning works, so is there something in the electoral system that stimulates the use of negative campaigning? All parties do it, some more than others, but it's especially common in competitive races. However, it can give rise to a backlash as many voters dislike negative campaigning. The party system effects cost and benefit, and when does the benefit outweigh the cost?
If the Conservative party attacks Labour and Conservative voters don't like it, what would they do when it came to voting? If there is no alternative, they would have to stay at home, whereas in a multi-party system, they could switch to another party. In a multi-party system, voters are attached to more than one party -- small differences in attractiveness can lead to shifts in preference ranking. British voters tend to punish parties that go negative.
The use of negative campaigning decreases the vote share of the party using it by 5% and increases that of main competitor by 5%. In the last general election, if the Conservative party had gone more negative, models show that they would have lost 3% of their voters, and UKIP would have gained 1.6%. While negative campaigning had no effect on turnout in the UK, it does lead to a decrease in trust in politics. It lowers support for policy such as welfare, where most are not against paying taxes for it if they trust the government. Negative campaigning has now been banned in Mexico.
Ye've made us want one, now.
Second up Matt had a word about the neurology of addiction.
Binge watching, drinking and eating chocolate all give us pleasure, but sometimes, this isn't a good thing. Sometimes it can lead to addiction. In your mid-brain is the limbic system -- the so-called lizard brain. If you peel away your brain's higher functions, this is what you're left with. Among other things, it's made up of the hypothalamus, which regulates things such as eating and mating, the hippocampus, which deals with memory and the amygdala which controls our fear response. The limbic system still has a strong grip on our day to day lives and what we do.
In our brains, neurons send out chemical messages through synapses. One set of neurons, exciting neurons, really pique our interest. They ensure that you pay attention to your surroundings and have been crucial to our survival as a species. They also help us to learn what's good for us and train us to do it again. You do something you like, your brain makes you feel good and you associate the positive feeling with the action and so you do it again.
If this gets out of control, you can develop an addiction. For example, with drugs, the urge from the primal part of our brain is so strong that we want to mimic that great feeling. These compounds imitate transmitters in our brain (in the limbic system) that use the same reward system that keeps us alive.
As we know, addiction can lead to issues. Individuals can become desensitised to pleasure, ending up in a state of wanting but not liking as their tolerance gets higher and higher. Then there is alleviation – trying to avoid negative stimulus, or doing something to stop feeling bad. Then there's the danger of chronic relapse. Your brain is changed after any stimulus, so even if you only try something once, your brain knows what it feels like.
Are social media, binge watching TV and video games the new addictions for the 21st century? As with gambling, often the thrill is not in the winning but in the anticipation – wondering whether you have any Facebook ‘likes’ is better than actually finding out. There are things that pre-dispose us to becoming addicts, but humans are unique in that we actively seek out things that are bad for us. In some ways, something like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is similar to addiction. We're still trying to work out exactly which bit of the brain controls addiction but need to thank evolution for making all of the good stuff bad for us.
Still from Bonnie and Clyde, the movie
Following a quiz based on serial killers, the final speaker is Serena whose talk is on the psychology of serial killers – the varying face of murder.
We start with a thought experiment: It's midnight, you're alone in the house apart from the body of the person that you've killed. What do you do? Some interesting answers were revealed, including hide the body in a chest freezer, drive it out to the ocean and dump it or drain the blood and then get rid of the light body. For what it's worth, your correspondent was one of the few people who suggested calling the police.
This exercise is crucial when you look at the process of murder. There are a number of reasons behind the dispose or dump problem; to avoid detection, panic, putting it somewhere quiet to ‘have time with the body’ or so that the body is found with minimal evidence as some murderers like the thrill of the chase. Then there is the profile of the murder to consider; is the person known to us? Who was the victim? Is it part of an on-going case? Has the body been mutilated or abused? Is there anything to link with another crime? Is it part of a serial case? Where was the body disposed of? Can this tell us anything about the home of the offender?
Murder is committed for many different reasons and these can all have different profiles. Was is domestic violence? Gang related? A trespasser? War? In the name of religion? Harold Shipman killed old people, Beverly Allitt killed children while Juliet Hulme – whose story was the basis for the film Heavenly Creatures – killed her friend's mother. Whether it's single, mass, or a spree, the profiles are all very different.
But what is the difference between a mass, spree and serial?
Mass murder is three or more murders at once over multiple crime scenes at one location. It's planned, and the killer will often know one or more of the victims. It's different from a serial killing in that there is no cooling off period. Examples are Columbine, Virginia Tech and Dunblane.
A spree is like a hybrid of mass and serial. It's unplanned or spontaneous, and takes place over two or more locations. It can go on for days or weeks and the victims are unknown to the murderer. The police often don't know what they're looking for and the spree brings about confusion. An example of this type is Bonnie & Clyde.
Serial killings are three or more murders carried out by one or more people. They have a major effect on authorities and the criminal justice system. There is a cooling off period between the killings. An example of this is Edward Kemper. He killed his grandparents at fifteen and was sent to a youth detention centre. Six years later, he killed six female students who all looked very similar. Then he killed his mother and her best friend. He is currently awaiting parole but says he doesn't want it.
While all killers are different, there are some very common characteristics. Most killers are white men, aged 25-35. They are intelligent or ‘street smart’ and are charming and charismatic. They are also often police ‘groupies’. Partners and people around them don't suspect them to be killers and so they blend in. Most killers are neither insane nor economically deprived. However, they do often show some signs of psychopathy and evidence also shows patterns of learnt behaviour from childhood.
Pint of Science was at The Canalhouse on Monday 23 May, 2016.
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