"Facts" & Focus Groups

aarongerdes@gmail.com (Aaron Gerdes) — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:01:00 -0700

There are few situations where focus groups provide a good return on investment for small or medium-sized businesses. In the past I’ve held this was due to some combination of the Hawthorne, Pygmalion, and placebo effect — people tend to give the sort of answers that they believe are expected, especially in formal settings, where their beliefs about what answers are expected often change.

Malcolm Gladwell recently reviewed Charles Tilly’s book “Why” in the New Yorker. “Why” provides some interesting ideas about how we present reasons and why we present the ones we do. This review sparked a great comment from one of Gladwell’s readers on the how Tilly’s ideas in “Why” may apply to market research.

Read the review here and the comment here.

The essence is this: There are four categories of reasons that we give: Conventions, which are “conventionally accepted explanations” (Accidents happen), Stories, a re-telling of the cause and effect from your unique perspective, Codes, or high-level institutionalized conventions & procedural rules, and Technical Accounts, or expertise-driven explanations.

The insightful commenter notices that the nature of market research compels people to move answers that sound like conventions, and doesn’t encourage the telling of stories.

Which kind of reason do you prefer to hear in feedback given to you? Why?

Aaron Gerdes: Tag focus

"Facts" & Focus Groups