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The analysis of voting behaviour left me dispirited for two reasons (“What makes you tick”, October 22). First, there was the observation that a person’s voting patterns are largely established by the time they are in their late twenties.

That worried me because of young people’s apparent increasing likelihood of not voting. If that becomes the pattern, fewer and fewer people will vote in future elections, making it almost inevitable that someone will suggest doing away with the costly exercises. It would be much cheaper for those governing to merely run a few focus groups when they felt “the people” needed a say.

But as a psychologist, what left me more dispirited was my peers’ attempts at explaining voting patterns. Without exception, the accounts of voting were spun from investigations focused on individuals.

An alternative approach is to ask how society is affecting its citizens so that many of them are disengaging from the political processes. In New Zealand, there are psychologists who examine society’s practices and discourses, looking at how the ways people think, talk and act in relation to particular issues are affected. A central feature that emerges is that society comes to seem relatively immutable; that things are seen as just “the way they are” and probably always will be.

If, for whatever reason, people accept that society is unlikely to change, they would be foolish to commit time, energy and other resources to trying to make it change. It makes more sense for them to put effort into the full-time task of looking out for themselves and their family.

Change can occur, even in people’s voting patterns, when people can see they have been sold a pup; that society is not “natural” but was brought into being and can be taken apart. Researchers working on these issues can help by showing how the disempowering understanding of society is created and by revealing who benefits from the widespread acceptance of this understanding. Raymond Nairn (Mt Eden, Auckland) LETTER OF THE WEEK The cover story helped to elucidate seemingly inexplicable voting patterns, but it didn’t pay adequate attention to the influence that trumps all others – if you’ll excuse the expression. Donald Trump was on a disturbingly likely trajectory to the White House before the media zeroed in on the rich pickings of his sordid past. Oblivious to the risk of stones flying around in glasshouses, he’d harped on about Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct, leaving himself wide open to the endlessly entertaining media bonanza that has followed. Hillary Clinton, meantime, gets it for her indiscretions of a not-so-sexy nature.

In New Zealand, the media also has a big part to play in shaping how we think and feel about our politicians. Eight years ago, newly elected Prime Minister John Key provided a refreshing contrast to the austere presence of Helen Clark. Chummy and affable, with a moderately pleasing televisual appearance and easy patter, he instantly became a media darling. Watching certain TV presenters fawning all over him was cringe-making for those of us who weren’t so easily charmed.

Meanwhile, to make the narrative work, it was necessary for the Leader of the Opposition to be seen as completely lacking in every aspect that contributed to

Key’s incredible popularity – all this occurring well before the “rock-star economy” was touted. Remarkably, that same Leader of the Opposition, once ridiculed by the media and eventually spurned by his own party, has just been elected mayor of the supercity with over 70,000 more votes than his nearest rival. And, yes – the media played its part in that.

It remains to be seen what stance the media will take in the lead-up to our next election. Undermining Key’s bid to win a fourth term by focusing on the areas where his Government has failed to perform may seem mildly newsworthy,

but without a charismatic and convincing Opposition Leader to provide contrast, there’s no substance to the plot. Hopefully, something scintillating will emerge before it’s all over. Patricia Fenton (Whangarei)