MESSAGE FOR WEEK BEGINNING 13th October 2003

Opinion Survey

On television in New York there was a brief comment about a new survey to assess family well being. Some of the results were contradictory or paradoxical. For instance several families would report some type of anxiety or depression yet overall families said they were happy with their mental health. The same sort of thing applied to family finances and to education of the children. The point seems to be that while surveyed were happy to report things in general and in the abstract, they were very reluctant to say that their particular family was in trouble. This direct admission might imply failure or that something needed to be done. Because of these sorts of effects these types of 'opinion survey' do not seem very reliable. It is well known that people answer subjective surveys according to how they want to see themselves. It might be even better to ask about the neighbour's family rather than your own

Edward de Bono nmt
13th October 2003