Exponents of Behavioural Economics and Social Influence theories don’t seem to like research much. I think they’re wrong – they should just dislike bad research…
New thinking has threatened Research’s comfy know-all world…
Over the last 10 years new wisdom about how ideas are shared, and how we influence one another has become fashionable (which isn’t to say it’s wrong thinking, just popular). One common strand of thinking recognises that people are nothing more or less than ‘big brained social animals’. We are ‘wired’ to operate using instinct – our brains employ short-cut decision making processes wherever possible.
The idea that we act first and foremost as social beings, rather than as individuals has lots of traction too.
This new thinking brings challenges to the marketing and research community’s old-world view. For a start, we have been told to abandon naïve models of how advertising works, or can work in the new world order. (The naïve model being: see an ad, then want, then buy the brand.) We’ve been told too to abandon asking individual consumers ‘why?’ in market research, because people can’t really know what drives their own behaviour, and behaviour is a group activity and so asking individuals ‘why?’ is futile.
Where has this new emerging wisdom come from? And how comfortable should we feel with this new consensus? Or are we missing a piece of the jigsaw?
Some background to Social Influence Theory
Below I outline some of the roots of ‘social influence’ thinking, and explain my own view that these ideas are valuable, but are only a partial description of human behaviour and decision making. Unsurprisingly, my case is that qualitative research is a valuable marketing tool…and that it’s OK to keep on exploring ‘why’ people behave like they do!
One important piece of learning that has excited the marketing community is that ‘action proceeds thought’. This anti-intuitive(!) description of human behaviour is based on key learnings from neuro science about how our brain drives actions, and the exciting insight that ‘messaging’ in the brain goes directly via the limbic system (which I think is the more ‘primitive’ bit of the brain) as well as via other pathways that ‘process’ information. In other words action proceeds thought. You might want to read one of the featured books on my book list ‘Introducing Mind & Brain’ by Angus Gellatly & Oscar Zarate for a far more robust (but accessible) explanation of the science.
There are numerous examples too of how our brain operates in unexpected ways that have more to do with instinct (animal instinct) and intuition than reasoned, logical and processed thinking. Surprisingly, even solutions to the most complex ideas are delivered by our sub-conscious mind as flashes of inspiration.
Neuro science is important too in helping us establish how ideas are transmitted between people (and therefore how social influence works). We are social animals that transmit cultural information to one another, and we are ‘wired’ to imitate (and adapt) behaviours in order to learn, develop and become part of the social group. Enter Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godwin, and others, and talk of ideas spreading like contagion…
At the same time that our knowledge and understanding of how the brain and mind works has been growing, society has been undergoing change too. There’s no need to dwell on the internet or other technological innovations, other than to say that the possibility of being a very social animal is literally realised through technology today. What the internet offers us (and how it works), powerfully reinforces the idea that people need information that is quick to process, sticky enough to pass on, unique enough to stand out… We live in a speeded up world, where social influence is achingly possible.
These ideas are powerful and intriguing. The implications for research and how we do qualitative research are far-reaching too, but I don’t find myself agreeing with the idea that focus groups are redundant or that we should give up asking people about their memories or their motivations for their behaviour.
Here’s my view then…
I believe we are social animals, but I believe the opposite is also true, and that we have individual identities and experiences, and an important sense of self. For me, social influence is hugely significant in how we derive our sense of self, but our conscious mind, the stories we tell ourselves about our identity, the way we practice thinking (because I think we do ‘rehearse’ our behaviours and thought processes) are also really important pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of ‘how we do what we do’. I agree that we can’t glibly ask people ‘why they do things?’ or ‘what they would do next?’ in qualitative research because they don’t know the answer to this (no one can really predict the future, can they?), but we can ask people to talk about the associations and ideas that come to mind in relation to an idea. Individual experiences matter and they shine a light on what a brand might want to say about itself, or deliver to its customers, or avoid doing in the future. We are influenced by the group, but we process information as individuals, and qualitative research can be a resource for understanding this process of personal interpretation and its significance.
I think we are unreliable witnesses to our own behaviour, but that doesn’t mean that qualitative research is redundant, just that bad qualitative research should be banished!
Qualitative research which takes what people say literally without interpretation has always been bad research. Good researchers have always seen qualitative insight as partial, indicative, interesting and useful, but never definitive. Good research is as much about interpretation and analysis as it is about ‘what people say’. It’s about thinking ‘what does this mean given what I’ve heard, and what I know’? (referencing other data…). Qualitative research is about a ‘created’ view of the world.
I agree too, we are pre-disposed to process information and messages in a cognitively efficient way, (in other words quickly, and intuitively). BUT when we are motivated, we use the powerful resources of our brain to engage with complex ideas and difficult and even obscure thinking. I think we have given the idea ‘action proceeds thought’ too much weight. Our brains are complex devices that respond emotionally, and thoughtfully too. So, visual information doesn’t just pass to the Amygdala (which is associated with emotions), it passes to the Thalamus and Visual Cortex too where experiences are recognised (processed?). Our brains are complex, and work in complex ways, they don’t simply work on an emotional level.
We are left and right brain. Each individual has well-worn neural pathways which adapt and develop over time thanks to our specific genes and our environment. Again, I think qualitative research has a key role in exploring how different people respond or react to new ideas, visuals, messages, and also how individuals divert from the group, and how others see and can see the world…
We are introverts and extroverts with many different ideas and emotions swirling around in a diverse society and that bears examination. Until we are able to know absolutely ‘what are you thinking?’, ‘how are you feeling?’, talking to people about how they feel about ideas, and interpreting their responses (in other words doing qualitative research) is always going to be relevant and useful.
It is true that qualitative research can (should) never be the same again. Once you have recognised that people are unreliable witnesses and that people don’t know their own minds you have to start to focus on methods that understand real behaviour and not reported behaviour. But that should live alongside group discussions, and Q&A sessions that are used to understand how that person ‘constructs’ their world.
Research needs to recognise our instinct to imitate and copy, but that is the context for analysis, not an excuse for abandoning trying to understand people’s feelings and behaviours.
One last thought. I keep reading the same kind of ideas in blogs, in articles on how to work smart, marketing and advertising thought pieces, magazine pieces on self improvement… The idea that we are social animals feels like a meme itself. Are we all copying each other’s ideas and reproducing a new dominant ideology that is no wiser or truer than other ideas from the past.
