Home Economicus or Homo Sapiens?
We have seen that the majority of human behaviour is controlled outside consciousness. This is in contrast to the classical models of economics which assume a model of man as Homo Economicus who is entirely rational, always knows what (s)he wants and is capable of calculating the precise consequences of any action. We all know that this is nonsense, and recent economic events have once again highlighted the inadequacy of such models both for economics and further afield. Read more »
The growing brain
As we have learnt, the brain didn’t spring into being but emerged over time. The most obvious evidence for the evolution of the brain is its structure. Firstly, our brain is quite large, but not as large as some other animals. However, relative to our body mass, the brain outweighs all our fellow creatures! Interestingly, one of the common threads between those animals with relatively larger brain sizes is that they are all very social animals. Read more »
I can’t think why
After facilitating two fun-packed days on consumer psychology last week, I picked up the latest edition of Newsweek which had a lead article on the very same topic written by Sharon Begley (link below). Sharon Begley focuses on the impact of the ‘Twitterization’ of culture, arguing that our brains are sometimes so overloaded with information that they simply freeze. The story is backed up by neuro-imaging studies of brian activity during decision making, which show that when overwhelmed with information our conscious brains sometimes literally ‘switch off’. More importantly, with too much information, our decisions can make less and less sense. Read more »
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne
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In a thought provoking article on BBC News website, Michael Blastland discusses the use of the “Don’t know” response in social surveys and argues that “Don’t know” often masks an “It depends” response. I agree with him that respondents often feel that “Don’t know” is a default answer, in the face of insufficient context, and Robert Bain also talked about this in his recent article on being a fake online respondent. Read more »
“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” - David Hume
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“Don’t ask silly questions if you don’t want foolish answers.” - C. Ryland
I have a lot of sympathy with Roger Sant’s recent article in research-live.com on the need for researchers to provide more engaging and participative questions, and his recommendation to allow participants to define for themselves what is important. Read more »
I will let you into a secret. A lot of current thinking in brand and communications research is misplaced. Most marketers and market researchers fail to take account of recent advances in psychology. This presents a great opportunity for many companies to get ahead of the competition.
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“Our lives are frittered away by detail; simplify, simplify.” - Henry David Thoreau
“Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.” - Edward Tufte
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The debate over insight is becoming heated, particularly at Research-Live, although I think most of the differences are semantic. Nick Johnson first proclaimed that “insight is dead”, and I agree that the word is overused. However, his (very accurate) description of research outcomes with two hour and 80 page powerpoint decks, is about data and not insight, and his plea to look beyond the immediate data is absolutely on the mark. In his response to this, Anthony Tasgal defends “insight” as the currency of consumer understanding, and argues that insight is a process and not an object, and most importantly that insight always includes a creative element, and is always actionable (and actioned). He is right to argue that insight is about replacing the 80 page deck with an action oriented debrief process.
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