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Same Same But Different

How different are the British from the Americans? The Economist has just run a survey interviewing a thousand Brits and a thousand Americans with the same questions relating to social, economic and political matters. The differences are quite stark. Amongst the nuggets (including some paraphrased from the feature):

  • 80% of Americans believe there is a God compared to less than 40% of the British
  • Americans are more likely to think of globalisation's impact on the domestic economy as bad, and well over half think that free trade is often harmful (compared to 30% of Brits)
  • British Tories would vote for Barack Obama; Labour supporters (narrowly) prefer Hillary Clinton
  • The British would pick Bill Clinton before Tony Blair if they could choose from a list of recent Anglo-American leaders
  • Americans are less keen on both the United Nations and NATO
  • But they are more enthusiastic about the “special relationship” with Britain.
  • Americans are more anti-big-business
  • Britons are more willing to sacrifice civil liberties in pursuit of security.

For a visual summarising the key results which you can click to enlarge go here.

6 responses to “Same Same But Different”

  1. R N B Avatar
    R N B

    Having lived both there and here, this area of transatlantic differences fascinates me, and I regularly mention it too (even just a couple days ago).
    It’s interesting that you have put the big religious difference first on the list, I sometimes wonder whether that is a causal factor to some of the other expressed attitudes.
    But I guess the biggest differences relate to population density and the European legacy of thousands of years of continuous civilisation while fighting over the same prime locations.

  2. R N B Avatar
    R N B

    Having lived both there and here, this area of transatlantic differences fascinates me, and I regularly mention it too (even just a couple days ago).
    It’s interesting that you have put the big religious difference first on the list, I sometimes wonder whether that is a causal factor to some of the other expressed attitudes.
    But I guess the biggest differences relate to population density and the European legacy of thousands of years of continuous civilisation while fighting over the same prime locations.

  3. neilperkin Avatar
    neilperkin

    Yep, it was interesting that the religious differences were some of the strongest

  4. neilperkin Avatar
    neilperkin

    Yep, it was interesting that the religious differences were some of the strongest

  5. Rob @ Cynic Avatar
    Rob @ Cynic

    I’ve lived in both places too [though Miami / NYC isn’t a fair representation of the US and Nottingham / London isn’t a fair representation of the UK] however one of the biggest differences I experienced between the 2 countries was the populations attitude towards counter points of view … mainly interms of how open they were to it, how they dealt with it when they got it and what benefits they felt from discussing it.
    It goes without saying that the UK had a far healthier perspective than the US and I was working on great brands out there, not the typical corporate rubbish – so god knows how someone who works at/with Kraft would cope 🙂
    I don’t know why I’m writing this – I just thought I would as I’m back in the US an unhealthy amount of time and it’s bringing everything back, ha!

  6. Rob @ Cynic Avatar
    Rob @ Cynic

    I’ve lived in both places too [though Miami / NYC isn’t a fair representation of the US and Nottingham / London isn’t a fair representation of the UK] however one of the biggest differences I experienced between the 2 countries was the populations attitude towards counter points of view … mainly interms of how open they were to it, how they dealt with it when they got it and what benefits they felt from discussing it.
    It goes without saying that the UK had a far healthier perspective than the US and I was working on great brands out there, not the typical corporate rubbish – so god knows how someone who works at/with Kraft would cope 🙂
    I don’t know why I’m writing this – I just thought I would as I’m back in the US an unhealthy amount of time and it’s bringing everything back, ha!

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