The power of stories
We know that compelling presentations and insights which can create genuine business changes are based on new emotional connections. Why is this, and why is it that qualitative research so often has greater impact and acceptance than more rigorous quantitative validation? The answer lies in stories.
The obvious answer is to look at the emotional resonance of individual testimony versus the empirical validity, but low empathic value, of quantitative data. Numbers just do not have the same emotional resonance as a real consumer story, and the answer may lie in the way in which our brain developed. In even the very recent past, there were only two ways for humans to learn, and often such learning was vital to survival. We could either rely on our individual experience, or on the individual testimony of other trusted humans. Our brains have never evolved to remember statistics and averages, and our ancestors did not have access to large data sets and quantitative validation.
Our memories are wired to make connections between similar emotional experiences, and therefore we tend to generalise from individual examples to general rules, as these individual examples are much more “sticky” than abstract numbers and generalisations. That is, we learn by from specific examples, which emotionally connect with our existing experiences, and we find it difficult to learn by compiling data across multiple examples. And nothing connects more strongly than a personal story.
As stated in other posts, emotions are absolutely critical to understanding an idea, especially if the idea is to influence our beliefs and change our behaviour. Numbers just don’t cut the mustard (and I say that as someone who, although I have used and valued qualitative research, has focused more on quantitative research throughout my career)! That’s why advertisements always work better with personal testimonials, and why word of mouth is such a powerful influence on behaviour. I myself have made presentations where the opinions of hundreds of consumers had far less impact on the audience than an individual quote or video clip.
Does that mean we should forget quantitative research? Of course not, it is vital that companies validate individual opinions (especially those of their management) and properly mitigate business risk through robust research. At the same time, they must always QUALIFY such QUANTITATIVE information. More importantly, as researchers who need to influence and drive changes in businesses, we should always remember the power of individual testimony and qualitative understanding to help us to communicate the insights that we find in quantitative research through the use of empathy and narrative.
