Stoic Week 2017 Report (part 4 of 4) by Tim Lebon

This article is the fourth part of the report on Stoic Week 2016. The previously published parts of the report summarised the demographics, the level of happiness and Stoicism at the start of Stoic Week, the impact of taking part in Stoic Week on well-being.
This report is divided into two sections:

• Participant feedback at the end of Stoic week on various parts of the materials[1] and their experience.
• Overall conclusions and recommendations

You can StoicWeek Report Part 4 2016.

Participant Feedback

How useful were the audio recordings?

As in previous years participants were invited to listen to a number of audio recordings. Table 1 below shows participants’ ratings of the recommended audio recordings. The early and morning meditations were part of the recommended daily routine, the Stoic Attitudes meditation was an optional additional resource and the View from Above was part of the programme for Sunday (Nature).
How useful was this recording (on a scale of 0-5?)

Table 1: Ratings of Audio recordings of Meditation Routine Audio Recordings, Stoic Week 2016
All the recordings received good ratings, averaging around 4 out of 5. Similar numbers reported listening to each recording.

How useful were the recommended Daily Stoic Exercises?

Table 2 below shows how highly participants rated each of the daily Stoic exercises as well as the number of people who completed each activity and their ratings of the exercises.

Table 2: Ratings of Daily Stoic Exercises in Stoic Week 2016 (294 respondents) 
The activities which had the highest rating and were also the most popular were Tuesday – What is in our control and Wednesday – Stoic Mindfulness. It should be noted that all the activities had a high approval rating (3.8 or more out of 5). A large percentage of participants completed each activity.

In which areas of life was Stoic Week most helpful?

Table 3: Ratings of how useful Stoic Week was in various areas of life?
As shown in table 3 (above), Stoic Week achieved an 82% usefulness rating overall (4.1/5). The area where Stoic Week was judged to be of most use was Knowledge of Stoicism, followed closely by becoming a better person and becoming wiser. Despite the theme of Stoic Week 2016 being love, relationships still received the lowest rating (3.6, the same as in 2015). The “other” ways in which Stoic Week helped people included “accepting myself”, “removing worrying thoughts”, “ reducing anxiety”, “structuring a daily practice” and “handling adversity”.
Some participants provided further information about exactly how Stoic Week helped, for example
Relationships

• “definitely pausing before speaking more!”
• “Being less critical”
• “Letting go of the effects of awful people”
• “My wife and I did it together this year”
• “I don’t usually think much about relationships, so this was all kind of new.”

Becoming a Better Person

• “Less impulsive”
• “More introspective”
• “Has helped me to not be emotionally hijacked in various social scenarios, thus allowing me more focus to be a better person.”

How long did participants spend on Stoic Week each day?

The average time spent by participants came out as an impressive 37 minutes (very similar to last year’s figure of 36 minutes). As shown in Figure 1 (below), most participants reported spending over half an hour on Stoic Week each day. A significant number of people spent longer each day.

Table 4: How long did you spend on Stoic Week activities each day?

Which formats for the Stoic Week Handbook proved to be most popular?

As shown in table 5   (below), 39% of participants reported using the website, 36% of participants used the pdf booklet. whilst 10% used Kindle and 13% epub.[2] Compared with 2015, this shows a small but definite shift away from the pdf booklet towards epub and html.

Table 5: What was the main format you used for accessing Stoic Week?

Which of these formats would be useful for you in accessing Stoic Week?

Table 6: Which formats would be useful for accesing Stoic Week?
When participants were asked which formats would be useful, a sizeable number of people requested an App, with Android and IOS in roughly equal demand. About a third as many people would like to see a booklet made available in mobi or epub format. It is debatable as to how much added value an App would bring. One view is that what people really value is push notifications which could be provided in other ways (e.g. by text or email). Your further thoughts would be valued.

Feedback on the Questionnaires

Some people appreciated having the feedback from the SABS questionnaire, which can provide pointers about areas of Stoicism to work on. There were also some criticisms as detailed below.

• It would be good to have a list of the stoic attitudes published online
• Found a few questions ambiguous. Also easy to game if you were so inclined.
• It was informative
• Personally would appreciate more distinction between what I BELIEVE vs what I PRACTICE. I believe in Stoicism but have a hard time practicing and some questions made it unclear whether it was referencing what I believe or what I actually practice.
• They are useful but SABS is far too long (though assume you are looking to select items that “work”). The positive and negative affect measures refer to the previous 4 weeks so will pick up feelings before Stoic Week even when measured afterwards – hence diluting the effect. For people (such as myself) who already practice Stoicism, I wouldn’t expect Stoic Week to have much effect – so seems important to control for level of previous practice when analysing the effects.
• Pretty good questions related to Stoicism.
• Its interesting to gauge ones qualities and understanding
• Useful

There is room for refinement of the questions so they are in some cases clearer and less ambiguous. The SABS questionnaire is long but as the commentator realised, this is deliberate as we are in the process of working out which questions are most relevant. The final version to be used with the general public should be shorter and in more simple a language. The suggestion about controlling for previous level of Stoicism is a good one. This could be done by looking at the scores of those who were the least Stoic at the beginning of Stoic week and/or who had not done Stoic week or attempted to practice Stoicism before.

Overall Conclusions and Recommendations

Drawing together the above feedback and the other qualitative feedback (found in the full report) with the findings report in the first 3 parts of these report, the most significant findings from Stoic Week 2016 are as follows:

• • 77% of respondents were participating in Stoic Week for the first time.
  • The ratio of males to females was 66% to 33%
  • Over 43% of respondents were from USA
  • Less people completed the initial set of questionnaires compared to 2015 (1798 down from 2503) although the numbers registering for Stoic Week actually increased (3365 up from 3080)

Analysis from initial set of questionnaires taken at the start of Stoic Week

• There is a correlation coefficient of .4 between Stoicism and well-being. Given the size of the sample (nearly two thousand), the chances of this association being accidental is less than one in a million.
• Stoicism does go with positive emotions as much as with the reduction of negative emotions.
• There is only a weak association between stated knowledge of Stoicism and average well-being (a correlation co-efficient of about .1) , whereas it’s nearly four times higher for people who practise Stoicism.
• The over 55s were the most Stoic and in general the older people are, the more Stoic they are.
• The Americas win the contest for most Stoic geographic areas The UK (stiff upper lip notwithstanding) trails the field.
• SABS with by far the strongest association with well-being (however it is measured) item 22 , asking about ruminating and worrying. Stoic virtues also do very well, with courage, practical wisdom , compassion, self-control and fairness all scoring highly. Cognitive distancing (item 24) scores well, as does using the Stoic Ideal Advisor and items to do with seeing humanity as connected and Stoic Cosmopolitanism.

Analysis from second set of questionnaires taken at the end of Stoic Week

• For the fourth year running, taking part in Stoic Week led to a significant increase in well-being on all measures. The results were remarkably similar to 2015.
• The SABS items that showed the biggest increase, cognitive distancing and reducing rumination, are both significantly related to improvements in mental health as well as well-being.
• Those who change most in their degree of Stoicism changed substantially more in terms of well-being than those who changed least in their degree of Stoicism. This supports the hypothesis that the change in well-being is largely attributable to participant’s being more Stoic.
• A cause for concern is the reduced number of participants completing the questionnaire after Stoic Week.

Summary of qualitative feedback

• Most participants gave a high rating to experience overall and the materials used, including the audio recordings and daily exercise.
• Participants additionally reported Stoic Week to be helpful in helping them to be better people, to become wiser, with relationships and to become more knowledgeable about Stoicism.
• There was a slight shift away from using the pdf booklet towards using other formats
• There were some specific suggestions to improve formatting and structure of the handbook
• There was a desire expressed to be notified more on a daily basis during Stoic Week
• Some people would like the opportunity to interact more within a more private network group
• Many participants were very grateful for the opportunity to take part in Stoic Week and described the ways in which they had benefited

Pulling these ideas together, there follows some recommendations for future Stoic weeks

• Repeat the experience – a lot of people took part and benefited
• There is a case for doing something different so that people who participated in previous years will learn something new. Perhaps a Stoic handbook based on Seneca could be developed
• There is a good case for longer experiences of Stoicism than one week. The SMRT course already addresses this, and this should be run again and incorporate the same research that is used for Stoic week.
• In addition, it would be desirable to do a follow-up (e.g. 3 or 6 months) to see if the benefits have been maintained or not. This would be particularly relevant for the SMRT course.
• There was an issue this year with some people not receiving notifications on a daily basis. In fact, mails were sent automatically, so it is not clear why they were not all received. Perhaps there was an issue with spam filters which needs to be addressed. Perhaps there are other “push notification” options available from WordPress other than email.
• People should be encouraged to use formats other than pdf unless printing, as pdf is designed mainly for printing.
• Regarding the questionnaires, there was a much reduced number of people filling in the questionnaires at the end of the week. This may have been partly due to people not receiving daily emails, or perhaps for other unknown reasons. There is a case for ensuring we can notify people about filling in the questionnaire, which we cannot do at present if they provide only a pseudonym and have not registered with Stoicism Today.
• The SABS questionnaire should be continued to be developed and the feedback provided to people is thought useful. However there is scope for the questions to be less ambiguous in some cases.
• Some thought should be given to how to make Stoic week more known or more appealing to those who do not take part so much currently
• As technology changes, there will be scope for integrating new opportunities (e.g. private social media groups, videos, push notifications so people can be reliably informed each day) and these should be investigated

[1] To view the Stoic Week 2016 materials see http://modernstoicism.com/q_lesson_page/introduction-to-stoic-week/ Registration may be required.
[2] Epub is an open standard used for example on iBooks on Apple devices and Google Books on Android.