Deadly sins of today (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Deadly sins of today

'I'm very fiery' Olivia McCann who agrees with the report's view of women's anger Ref: 77978-15THE seven deadly sins are as relevant today as they have ever been, according to new research.

The study, funded by the Economic and Social Res-earch Council in Swindon, uses the seven deadly sins pride, anger, lust, avarice, gluttony, envy and sloth as a way of looking at modern life.

And the authors claim that it provides a useful insight to current issues such as binge drinking and the rise in personal debt.

Romesh Vaitilingam, editor of Seven Deadly Sins: A New Look at Society Through an Old Lens, which is out today, said: "This report provides invaluable insights into the patterns of our lives in the early 21st century.

"The findings show how behaviour can be traced all the way back to the seven deadly sins."

Part of the research claims that 30-something single woman are angrier then the rest of society.

And 31-year-old Olivia McCann, of Pinehurst, who runs the Swindon Children's Scrap-store, in the Pinehurst People's Centre, agrees.

"I'd say that's spot on," she said.

"I definitely get more angry now towards things, I'm very fiery."

And for Olivia it can be almost anything that lights her fuse.

"It's just dealing with daily life," she said.

"At work there's no-one above me so if I can't see how to overcome something at first my blood pressure goes up.

"If something sets me off I can go through the roof.

"Then there's manners. If I hold the door open for someone and they don't say 'thank you' I get very annoyed."

The research claims that women who are single lose their tempers more quickly than there paired off contemporaries.

And Olivia, who is single, said: "I think it's easier when you go home and you've got someone you can pour it all out to.

"It's like a measuring jug. If you've got someone else you can pour a bit out but, if you haven't, the jug fills up and up and you get angrier and angrier."

The study also links a rise in personal debt to the sin of envy.

Last month the Adver revealed how the number of homes being repossessed in Swindon had doubled in a year.

Interest rate rises and a blas attitude to debt were blamed.

For gluttony the research claims that it is middle-aged people who consume the most booze.

As reported in the Adver last year Dr Tony Pickworth, a consultant in the Intensive Care Unit at Swindon's Great Western Hospital, said the number of women drinking themselves to death was shocking.

In the three years before his comments, eight women aged between 30 and 45 had been treated in ICU for liver failure as a direct result of excessive drinking.

PRIDE

Professors Ed Cairns and Miles Hewstone explored attitudes of 'pride and prejudice' among the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland.

They found that pride in one's 'in-group' can be thought of asbenign, acceptable and positive in many ways.

It is not inevitably linked to sectarian views. Indeed, warmth towards the in-group tends to be positively correlated with warmth towards the out-group.

And bias can actually disappear when the level of sectarian conflict is relatively low a true 'peace dividend'.

So, they claim, a peaceful future does not have to be built by attempting to cut individuals from their valued community identities.

ANGER

Dr Eirini Flouri and Professor Heather Joshi looked at anger, irritability and hostility in children and adults.

They have documented our experience of anger drawing on the 1970 and 1958 birth cohort studies, people who are now in their thirties and forties.

Among their findings are the facts that children from lower social classes are more likely to have been reported as frequently irritable or having tantrums; and that angry children do not necessarily become angry or unhappy adults.

For adults, women are more likely than men to report being persistently angry. And 30-somethings with no partner are more likely to report angry feelings than their contemporaries with partners.

LUST

Prof Kaye Wellings studied changing sexual behaviour in the UK analyses evidence from the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles to observe trends in sexual activity.

This revealed that changes in sexual behaviour have been considerably more marked among women than men.

For example, the proportion of women with one partner for life has fallen and the proportion reporting to have more than one relationship at a time has risen.

At the same time, women are twice as likely as men to regret their first sexual encounter and three times as likely to report being the less willing partner.

And the majority of people of both sexes four out of five strongly disapprove of sexual infidelity.

AVARICE

The research looked at whether the high levels of pay of US chief executive officers reflect the 'greed is good' attitude of avarice? Prof Martin Conyon suggests that there are other equally plausible explanations that explain pay outcomes, such as the need to recruit, retain and motivate talented chief executive officers to manage increasingly complex organisations in the competitive global economy.

The evidence suggests that CEO compensation both current pay and aggregate shares and options owned do provide the right incentives to focus on maximising corporate wealth.

At the same time, shareholders and boards must be vigilant in the design of compensation contracts.

GLUTTONY

The research looked at the issue of binge drinking and the binge economy.

The focus is often on alcohol consumption and its impact on public order and health among youngsters.

But as Prof Dick Hobbs shows, while binge drinking youths dominate the headlines, it is older drinkers in their middle years that are most likely to succumb to alcohol-related death.

He argues that it is the logic of the market and not the logic derived from careful data analysis that informs government policy on alcohol.

ENVY

They also looked at what part envy plays in the apparently spiralling stock of personal debt in the UK, which last year passed the £1 trillion mark?

Looking at data from the British Household Panel Survey, Stephen McKay finds that the average man has borrowed close to £5,000 while the average women owes around £3,000.

What's more, people who are envious of what others have, and dissatisfied with their own incomes, do tend to have higher levels of credit and greater difficulties making repayments. But the size of this effect is small compared with the effects of age, income and changes in circumstances.

SLOTH

For this sin the research looked at whether there is a turnout crisis in UK politics.

The last two general elections had the second and third worst turnouts since 1900.

Prof Charlie Jeffery uses the British Election Study and other surveys of political participation to understand growing voter apathy.

He argues that the real problem lies not in the voters' sloth but in the failure of politicians to communicate clear policy platforms and to reach out to habitual non-voters.

And he claims that failure seems deeply embedded at the UK level but is also present in the devolved nations despite extravagant claims made in the 1990s about a new politics of better participation for ordinary citizens.

Gareth Bethell