Podcast
Transcript:
PAULA
In this podcast Arthur, Benedikt, and I (Paula) we’ll be talking about the dynamics of bubbles within our own University College, while providing a meta-analysis of how to determine these bubbles.
I will be presenting you the psychological nature of people behind the results of our survey, and I will also talk about our qualitative part of the survey: an interview with 5 of our UCG students.
Arthur will talk about meta-analysis of how to create a survey that can detect one's political views and biases. And Benedikt will show how some of the dynamics at play in our small university bubble are used in the real world to influence voters by the use of big data and psychoanalytical models.
We’ll start off with the psychological analysis of the survey, and the nature of students in UCG.
The survey was sent out only to UCG students. We mainly wanted to focus on something that is familiar to all of us, and on something people can relate to.
We asked a total of 17 questions, and we made it as a Cambridge Analytica type of survey. We asked arbitrary questions to determine the background of people so we could make educated assumptions about the “bubble” they are in, but as well to determine what “bubble” dominates at our University. We
We started off by asking which nationality a person is, just to get the sense of how culturally diverse our University is, and as a result people from more than 20 different nationalities responded. Then we asked a bit more sensitive question, and that is “How would you describe the relationship with your parents?”. At first it may seem like an odd question to ask, because what does it have to do with a bubble I am in? But a relationship people have with their parents, actually says a lot about the person. Scientists says that the more attentive, and expressive you are with your parents, it is more likely you will be more open, and sociable in the future. The ones who get neglected by their parents, are the ones who allegedly will seek for attention, and demand more in adulthood. The survey told us that over 70% of students from UCG have a good relationship with their parents, and this matched well with more than 60% of students saying they feel more extroverted than introverted. As mentioned, a good relationship reflects on how open, and sociable a person is.
To have a good relationship with not only your parents, but people in general it is important to know how to take in information, either good or bad. And our participants like to focus more on the reality of how things are, rather than imagining the possibilities of how things could be. It is one thing to stay realistic about things in life, but it is also very important on how to remain calm under any type of pressure that the information can bring you. 37% of our respondents like to review the problem in front of them, but 29% like to take a break when a problem occurs. Surprisingly only 9.7% of people would ask for help. There are many reasons why people don’t like to ask for help. It is either because we feel incompetent if we can’t do it alone, or because we actually don’t want help, or because we don’t want to feel judged, or because we are too proud, or because we don’t want to out someone else’s ideas. Whatever the reason is, asking for help is encouraged from our professors, and don’t feel bad to ask for help with a problem if you need it.
Our next question was “Do you act upon your sensing or intuition?”. And this one is rather interesting. There was a study that shows that people who act with their intuition are more in favor of abstract art, and that people who act upon their sensing prefer realistic, and representational art. The hypothesis was just partly confirmed. But there is a lot of correlation to this with our survey. 46% of our respondents act with their sensing, and 54% of them prefer to take in information realistically, rather than seeing possibilities. The distinction is just a few percent. As mentioned, the hypothesis was just partly confirmed, because 54% of our respondents prefer to act with their intuition, but as the survey was anonymous, we can’t 100% confirm that people who choose sensing as their answer, also chose taking in information realistically. In this debate, intuition won. Focused on meanings of things in life and reading life between lines. But even though we have more students acting upon their intuition, there is a healthy balance with sensing. People who prefer ideas that have practical applications. Realists to keep the dreamers on the ground, and dreamers to bring some fairy tale to life.
Now, your view on something can change as many times as you want to, but one thing we don’t change often is the whole outlook on life itself. 87% of our respondents said that they have changed their outlook on life since coming to University, and the social environment played a major role. Now that social environment, that is our bubble. The people we are surrounded with every day, and the people we spend time the most. They have a huge impact on how we think, and see the world, because that is also why we choose to spend time with certain people, because they either share the same beliefs, or something very similar to that. But of course, books, and Scientifics, and other types of articles can also change our opinion on something, and that is why 20% of people said they changed their outlook on the world because of the Academic Readings we get at University.
Academic Readings have a crucial role in shaping students to young globally responsible people. Because we want them to be aware of all the causes of global warming, or how not vaccinating your children is dangerous for them.
It is also interesting to see that 80% of our respondents said that they would make health care free for everybody. It gives a very emphatical, and emotional feeling of our UCG community, as well passion for helping others.
In our qualitative part of the survey, in our interview, we asked only two questions, and one of them was to describe their personality in one word, and the other one was to describe their social environment at University, and how it is different from the one back at their home country. Love-giving, easy-going, passionate, and caring. And we believe you can see yourself in at least one of those personality traits. Just like your fellow students here. Regarding the social environment here, our participants describe the University environment as more relaxed, open minded, and refreshing than from the one back at home. Could be the reason because so many different cultures are mixed in one place, and we are all learning, influencing, and changing one another. There are for sure many smaller bubbles at our university, but UCG is one big bubble of "love-giving, easy-going, passionate, and caring people".
Coming up next, Arthur will be showing us how to detect political views and biases, while conducting a thorough meta-analysis of how one forms said views and biases.