Psychology of Recession

The psychology of a recession is a vast topic, so I want to restrict myself to one dimension of it. The essential task of boosting our nation’s self-confidence.

This task is extremely hard to do, especiallly when every news bulletin leads with the crisis in the Eurozone, when unemployment figures keep rising, shops and pubs are closing down and the pre-Christmas crush on Oxford Street seems a little thinner this year. And self-confidence is a fragile thing. But slowly but surely, we should be lifting the spirits to celebrate successes, no matter how small.

You wouldn’t refuse to praise a child just because the painting they bring home from school is no Leonardo da Vinci. News pick-me-ups are vital for our ongoing well-being because they start to boost confidence levels. I was thinking of this when last Saturday, I saw new recruits being escorted around the Peter Jones department store. Hired for the festive season, no doubt. For every person taken on, that is a good news story. It makes them feel good about themselves to have been chosen. More widely, their hiring is a good news story for the department store. Which is also good for its customers and its shareholders – which means your and my pension.

But do we hear about these good news stories? Hardly. But if we did, there would be one more spike of national cheer in an otherwise apparently gloomy period. So, broadcasters and news channels, from now on, make a point of featuring a positive ‘recession’ story: a shop that has opened, jobs created (no matter how few), orders won. This will have a knock-on effect of acting as a morale booster for the nation. And the psychological implications of this will be tremendous.