Consumer Behaviour

Anyone who works for a large organisation and who has ever wanted to do something constructive for that organisation, will have experienced the same questions and the same dark forces waiting to challenge their brilliantly conceived scheme: the finance department.

Arguably, it’s reasonable enough that a corporation, preoccupied as it is with making, sustaining and growing profit, should have a beady eye on every single cost that is incurred in the course of such pursuits.

That this can lead to conflicts and disputes is unquestionable.  Frequently the return on investment from activity, particularly marketing activity, is hard to evaluate: it can be tricky to gauge how long a long term brand-building exercise will be making a return and valuing brands themselves is a topic that is hotly debated.  Assumptions are made (explicitly or implicitly) and models constructed: although often the casual observer might question the extent to which these are attempts to justify the intended decision, rather than entirely objective evaluations: the latter being fraught with difficulty precisely because of the number of assumptions that must be made.

All of which, in a roundabout sort of a way, gets me to my point about what companies might be missing: psychology.

Consider for a moment all of the corporate functions that deal in areas that are directly or indirectly concerned with psychology:

• Marketing and market research deal directly with the business of influencing and understanding consumers.  Human resources are frequently involved in matters of appraisal, evaluation and motivation.
• The facilities management people create the environment in which workers work or customers shop (arguably there is no bigger influence on either workers or shoppers than the environment in which their activity takes place).
• There is a lot of good work being applied to the sales arena from psychology (the psychology of influence), and it’s relevant in procurement negotiations too.
• Add in the issue of Groupthink and all the problems it has been shown to cause in organisational decision-making: management teams and boards of directors routinely tread in areas where psychologists can help them avoid succumbing to confirmation bias and group influence.
• Consider also inter-personal and inter-departmental dynamics: getting these relationships functioning appropriately is critical to organisational success.
• Finally, employing someone who would understand the merits, design requirements and interpretation of experimental tests could save organisations from leaping too far without adequate evidence.

So almost every function dabbles in psychology, just as every function is involved in finance, but there is never (in my experience) a corporate resource to oversee the way in which psychology is applied, or even that it is considered at all.

Companies could gain enormously from having a psychologically well-informed eye watching over their actions.  Should any enlightened organisation reading this care to make a positive step and offer me a non-executive director role with their company I would be happy to consider it!

Philip Graves

Philip Graves behavioural insight, Marketing non-executive director, psychology

I pondered whether to use this blog on consumer behaviour to detail my book-writing journey and have decided that, since the book is (of course) about consumer behaviour and market research, it’s fair enough.  And I’ll be explaining elements of psychology that crop up along the way too, so I hope it will be interesting from a number of angles.

So, I’ve written my book. 

And writing a book is quite hard.  Between making the decision that I wanted to write a book and sitting there thinking, “Bloody hell, I’ve finished” there were weeks of sitting and researching and typing and hoping and wondering.

The wondering is quite preoccupying.  Writing is a very solitary process and you occasionally wonder if what you’re writing is worthwhile, whether anyone would be in the least bit interested in what you’re writing about and, perhaps most worryingly, whether you’re capable of writing at all.  The problem is that there’s no easy way of answering any of those questions until you’ve finished, and even then you probably don’t really know.

The best writing advice I received was from published author Kevin Hogan who said that I should never go back and edit before the book was finished.  Too many people end up with a perfect first chapter, or first page, but nothing more.  You just have to write until it’s done, then make it better.

For me the best writing aid was the Microsoft Word ‘word count’ feature.  I’ve always found numbers reassuring and it was comforting to track the progress I made (which I did on an old envelope).  This provided me with the most astonishing discovery; if you write at least a little each day the word count increases and you get closer to your target (I know, astonishing isn’t it).

What I discovered, psychologically-speaking, was that if you want to become a writer you have to pretend to be a writer for a couple of months, after which time you forget you’re pretending and the ingrained habit of writing becomes something you find yourself doing.  Fairly soon the serotonin buzz of seeing the word count tick over another 5,000 word threshold was significantly greater than the low doses available from watching re-runs of Friends or some other TV show that I wasn’t really that bothered about.

I’ve heard people say that you should stop watching TV if you want to make time to write.  Undoubtedly that’s a great idea, but in order to want to do something else like writing you have to push yourself to the point where that something else is more rewarding.   Just like with dieting, wanting an outcome is unlikely to be enough for most people, you’ve got to force the behaviour first.  It’s easy to be smug and say, “Stop watching TV and write”, but it doesn’t work that way for most of us.

So having written my book what now?

Over the coming weeks I’m going to share my experience of trying to get a book published. 

Some of what I’m going to write about has happened (but over such a long time period that you would have undoubtedly lost interest if you’d been living through it in real time – I nearly lost interest and it’s my book!). 

You’re going to meet some interesting characters, a few villains and perhaps even a hero or two. 

One thing is clear, no one knows what the ending will be.

Next time I’ll talk about the different routes to getting your book into print, what I believe the benefits are of each, and which route I plan to take.   I’ll hope you’ll come along for the ride.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published consumer behaviour, consumer research, getting published, market research, psychology, writing a book

When it comes to understanding consumers it’s always important to consider the issues from a rational perspective, and then completely ignore what you conclude.

Why?

Because consumer behaviour isn’t, for the most part, rationally based.

Recently I happened across a great example.

The UK supermarket chain Waitrose has always operated at the higher end of the market, catering to customers who are willing to pay a little more for higher quality produce.  Waitrose’s marketing makes much of the fact that they source their products carefully; some of their packaging will state which farm meat has come from for instance.

With the economic downturn all of the supermarkets have been keen to communicate low price messages; which isn’t easy since most of them operated on a low price platform anyway.  Indeed, the big two supermarkets (Asda who are owned by Wal Mart) and Tesco frequently squeeze suppliers brutally hard in order to drive down prices.  With such large shares of the grocery market, an efficient supplier has to decide between saying goodbye to most of their profit, down-grading their product, or losing a large proportion of their sales in an instant.

With most suppliers already squeezed the supermarkets have created new products, sometimes positioned below their already lower-priced own-label offerings, to sell more cheaply.  Sometimes they create new brands for these products, and sometimes they package them as new own-brand offerings.

Waitrose introduced an ‘Essentials’ own-label range and it seemed to be selling well.

I looked at the pizzas.

The ‘Essentials’ pizzas were more expensive than the regular own-label equivalents!

Looking on the company’s website I also notice that, even when the per pizza price is lower, the price per kilogram is higher on their ‘budget’ pizzas.

But they still sell.

Because customers buy the concept.  If the first instance primes them to believe that the product is cheaper, and in particular if that first experience isn’t bad from a quality perspective, then future purchases are made as an emotional reaction: seeing an ‘Essentials’ product is an opportunity to make a worthy purchase – a purchase that feels like a good, money-saving decision in these difficult times.

Few people will check what the actual cost is or how it lines up against alternatives – let’s face it that would make shopping extremely time-consuming.  And so the company can make a greater profit from a lower-priced product!

And to add to their prize the supermarkets, having drawn people in with the promise of lower-priced options, have the opportunity to influence the customers visiting their stores.  Feeling good about the money they believe they’ve saved, some customers will indulge in small ways elsewhere in the store.

Multi-buys will feel like great value, but lead to more products being purchased and, once sitting their on the shelf, the likelihood of their being consumed is high.  Consumption increases because of the constant visual prompt and feeling that a plentiful supply is available. It may even lead to feeling that a similar quantity of purchase is required next time, even if the offer is no longer present.

I’m not suggesting that such practices are admirable, desirable or morally justifiable.  But they provide a useful insight into the workings of the consumer mind.

Philip Graves

P.S. If you want to learn more about consumer behaviour take a look at my eBook, The Secret of Selling: How to Sell to Your Customer’s Unconscious Mind.

Philip Graves consumer behaviour consumer behaviour, priming, psychology, why customers buy

Continuing from yesterday’s post it seems my customer satisfaction is developing into a series.  I really appreciate the questions and comments, I sense an eBook coming on!

Today’s gratitude is due to babysitting maestro Lisa McLellan.  You may wonder what link there could possibly be between someone who is so focused on children and babysitting, and a consumer behaviour expert.  Well, as Lisa’s comment demonstrates, there is a link if you open your mind to it.

Here’s what Lisa said:

“I have found myself giving different answers to basically the same question depending on the wording of the question. I have also found through babysitting children of all ages, that at a particular age, (usually younger children age 2-4)children will choose the last choice they are given when you ask a question giving them a few answers to choose from. For example, you ask, “How did you get that scratch, did you fall down, did you scratch it on the corner of the bookcase, or did the cat scratch you?” 99% of the time, the child will say the cat scratched them simply because it was the last option.”

The great thing about studying children as consumers or, as in this case, as “respondents”, is that they are susceptible to all the same unconscious influences that adults are, but are far less skilled at concealing how they’ve been influenced with conscious filtering. 

Part of the innocence of childhood is the absence of the capacity to process what you’re about to say in advance, to check for social acceptability and, just as critically, self-perception.  In other words, “Is it OK to express this to this group of people?” and, “How will I look to them if I do?”

We soon learn not to repeat the last thing someone says to us, and it’s good we do or we would be too easy to manipulate; but we don’t learn not to let the options determine how we reply. 

Let me ask you a question: “What will you do this weekend? Play with the kids, watch a movie, sit down and relax?”.

You may not answer any of those things – although there’s quite a high possibility that you’ll mention one.  But almost anyone answering will be talking about leisure activity of some kind.

But if I’d asked you: “What will you do this weekend?” Some domestic paperwork, a supermarket shop, cut the grass?” you would probably have talked about chores and duties first. 

Studies have shown that if you ask people “How happy are you?” you will get a totally different response from asking the question “How unhappy are you?”  And if you ask which of two divorcing parties should get custody of a child you will get a different answer than if you ask which of those two parties shouldn’t get custody.

For my dissertation at university I looked at schoolchildrens’ attitudes to statistics.  Following the accepted protocol I used a battery of attitudinal questions (you know the “strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree type). 

I discovered that even children as old as fifteen were influenced by the orientation of the statement (i.e. whether it was framed positively or negatively).

Another revealing element of human psychology you can see quite easily in young children is emotional misattribution.  In fact, it’s a great way to appreciate that we humans are emotional creatures who retrofit rational explanations after the fact.

A child between the ages of two and seven (and possibly beyond) will often make a totally incongruent responses like: “Shall we get ready for school?” “No, I hate school!” or “Are you going to eat your sandwiches?” “No, I can’t stand cheese!” when you know perfectly well that they have enjoyed their time at school each day for the past year, or that they eat cheese frequently without a fuss.

What they’re revealing is that something has made them feel bad and they are directing that feeling at whatever target seems to fit the circumstances.  This could be an argument with a sibling, tiredness, a lost toy, resentment at having been disciplined for something a few minutes earlier, or any of a thousand other things.  As adults we learn to pick a more fitting target so we don’t get ridiculed, and so that we get to express our bad feeling; but it’s frequently just as misdirected.

Similarly, a toy will lie untouched for a week.  But once one child has it their sibling wants it too; more than anything else in the world.  This is an example of so-called “mirror neurons” in action and reflects (no pun intended) how we can all react by wanting to copy what we see others doing.  Ever yawned because someone else has yawned even though you didn’t feel tired?

So children reveal a lot about what we all do.  If you’re interested in the consumer research process you would do well to observe their inconsistencies and the influence that environment, frame and question wording have on them.

Next time I’ll tell you how you can analyse customer satisfaction.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, consumer research consumer research, customer satisfaction, priming, psychology

Following on from my post on the unconscious nature of advertising, Duane Cunninghamasked whether it was fair to say that any exposure was good for a brand?  The old chestnut of “there’s no such thing as bad PR”.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, when it comes to consumer behaviour and the workings of the consumer mind, there isn’t a clear cut answer in my opinion.  Let me explain…

For the most part exposure to a brand works positively.  As I’ve mentioned previously, the unconscious (largely visual) detection of brands builds unconscious familiarity and this alone is preferable to nothing.  When the brand is encountered consciously, it feels slightly familiar, safer and therefore slightly preferable to a previously unencountered rival.

Often there will be some associations with that brand.  It might be a high street sign, in which case the associations are with the environment of that high street (perhaps upmarket, perhaps skanky!).  Even without contextual associations, a brand logo may be redolent of another business or may use colours that carry particular associations, which will also shape the feeling created.

It is perfectly possible that mildly bad publicity will, over time, serve as a positive.  If all that is remembered is that the brand has been encountered before then, at an unconscious level, that is beneficial.  Where the bad publicity fails to stir up an appropriate level of emotion in the person, they may well quickly recall the negative component.

On the other hand negative labels have been shown to be very strong influencers of opinion.  Where a customer hears a story about a brand that is compelling and emotionally engaging (in other words, when it’s a good story), and particularly if that story emanates from a friend, it will be a prime association with the brand.

This bad association works at an unconscious level like the advice from a parent not to eat the poisonous berries on a bush; you’ve never tried the berries, nor have you ever seen someone eat them and fall to the ground clutching their stomach, but you have a reflexive reaction that they feel unappealing, which you will recognise (and post-rationalise) as a reason not to want to eat them.

Another element to consider is how confirmation bias fits in with bad publicity.  If someone was very critical of your favourite musician you wouldn’t attach anywhere near the same weight to it as if the same criticism was levelled at a musician you didn’t like.  Similarly, criticism of a brand you love may be perceived as an unwarranted attack that causes you to want to support that brand, rather than reappraise or reject it.

The strength of affinity for the brand will also determine how long bad publicity has an impact.  If the brand is really liked and the competitors are relatively weak (in terms of brand strength and distribution) customers will gravitate back to the brand relatively quickly.  The bottled water brand Perrier had a major health scare several years ago, but managed to survive the experience. 

Another brand of water, Dasani, marketed by Coca Cola had an ill-judged launch, bad publicity about it being filtered tap water that was associated with a famous and hugely popular comedy series (where the characters also marketed tarted up tap water) and then experienced a similar health scare.  Without a credible brand to support it the product was pulled and never sold again.

Philip Graves

So, it’s certainly possible to have bad publicity that can damage your business.

Philip Graves Advertising, Marketing Advertising, Dasani, marketing communication, Perrier, psychology

Firstly, thanks for all your comments, I find them encouraging, constructive and inspiring.

Secondly, Yann has raised another question.  Questions are wonderful things and, yet again, Yann has raised something that causes me to think about the subject of consumer behaviour (which I love to do) and given me a direction for this edition of my blog.

Yann asked whether our unconscious associations of brands are more influenced by broader environmental factors than advertising; things like what we hear (reputation).

Of course, there isn’t a single, clear-cut answer to this.  It is certainly the case that, were someone to hear an involving account (story) from a friend (social proof / trusted source / someone like me) this would trump an advertising message.  In this case, the powerful associations primed by the friend’s account work very similarly to negative personal experience: as soon as the brand name appears (be it at the start, middle or end of the ad) those established associations spring up and cause the person to dismiss what they’ve just seen.

By way of example, the UK furniture retailer MFI had a lousy reputation.  In fact, the first episode of a consumer rights TV programme Watchdog (in 1980) featured a complaint about the company that was handled extraordinarily badly by the poor store manager who was confronted by the BBC’s cameras.  I have never known anyone who had a problem with them, but I have been primed by the media to steer clear at all costs.  [MFI went under a few months ago.]

On the other hand, a lot of people don’t have an experience of a brand.  A lot of brands deal with superfluous elements of our lives.  Many of the things people tell us are not conveyed with sufficient emotion for us to assign unconscious significance to them (and so they are soon forgotten).

So humorous adverts, whilst inevitably failing to work on those already alienated, can create a positive emotional association for a brand.

Some brands have transformed their fortunes in exactly this way.  In the UK, Pizza Hut and Tango both experienced significant growth and profitability by taking brands that had lapsed into indifference and associating them with upbeat emotion.

When it comes to measurement of the unconscious impact of marketing (another of Yann’s questions) the only reliable way to evaluate is with a test and control methodology.  One area gets one set of unconscious associations the other doesn’t; or for a period you try one way, and later you try another.

With large brands it’s easier to do the former; it’s also important to consider the potential timescales involved.  Advertising that creates a more positive image of a brand in the way I’ve described might not produce immediate sales success; but it may still have an impact.

The key here is to adopt a strategy and persist with it for long enough for consumers to be influenced.  This is a by-product not just of the opportunity to be exposed to the communication sufficiently frequently, but also of the incidence with which they come into potential purchase contact with the brand.  If purchase frequency is low the campaign would have to be sustained without becoming irritating.  Of course, if a more motivating proposition appears on the scene from a competitor this can further muddy the waters.

Good marketing needs to be consistent at all the points it comes into contact with consumers.  The attractiveness of TV advertising (when it’s understood and applied correctly) lies in the opportunity to create emotion and associate the brand with it:  for a few seconds, the brand has full control of the consumer’s environment.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Advertising Advertising, analysis, psychology, why customers buy

Humour is often used to make an advert engaging.  What’s less well understood is that it also helps to create positive emotions which are then unconsciously associated with the brand or product concerned.

The tricky part is that humour is a relatively personal thing and if your ad isn’t funny to enough people the strategy can backfire in exactly the same way.

I had hoped to show you a recent Barclays Bank advert, but You Tube let me down – it’s there but with no sound (and the soundtrack makes this particular ad work).

Instead here are two examples.  The first is an ad that you’ve probably seen before – it spread superbly when it was first released onto You Tube because it’s extremely funny (at least many people think so).

And here’s another for a rival credit card that was shown repeatedly in the UK and seems, to me at least, entirely devoid of anything positive to connect with the company concerned at any conscious or unconscious level!

It can be difficult for brands to make an advert that is light-hearted or humorous and works well.  There is a need to balance the credibility of the unconscious associations they are inviting the consumer to make with something that will engage their target market and make them smile. 

Often a brand manager or marketing director isn’t personally representative of their target audience, invariably their understanding of their brand and product isn’t anything like typical.  Some would take this as a justification for asking consumers what they thought of an advert (or the script) in advance.  Unfortunately, this usually just leads to an invitation to consciously appraise the ad, and consumers will never sit and watch it in such a critical and judgmental mindset.  As a result, what’s reported back is usually misleading.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Advertising Advertising, Barclaycard, marketing communication, Master Card, psychology, unconscious mind

I’d like to pick up on a long reply to yesterday’s post because I hope I can be more constructive than I was able to be yesterday.

Here’s is Pam’s reply to yesterday’s post:

It’s interesting to read how the rational and unconscious minds often pull us in opposite directions. Your point is well taken that people often think they want A but actually choose B because it fulfills an unconscious need, want or desire. It is good to bear this in mind.

If you are looking to invest your money though, at some point – unless you choose to navigate the investment world yourself – you will likely be forced to make a choice between various options and advisers available to you. In essence, you are trusting your future to advice of someone and their investing philosophy and strategy.

The question then becomes in whom do you trust and why do you trust them?

As you have been explaining so well in your blog, our buying decisions must fulfill some type of psychological need. In the case of investing, one must feel comfortable entrusting their life savings.

For some it is purely an emotional investment. They will invest with the person who makes them feel most comfortable or represents a philosophy they feel most comfortable with.

For others, such as myself, our comfort-zone is found by analyzing details and facts. Rod’s approach will likely not persuade the masses. Nor does he intend it to. It’s a targeted niche of investors to whom his strategy will appeal. He knows and understands the demographics of those whom he is targeting.

I have seen first-hand the results Rod’s methods of investing. The process through which he takes his clients is thorough, rigorous and intense. I can speak to this through personal experience as I am one of his numerous clients. And yes, even I had to go through the same battery of tools he uses to devise a plan tailored and targeted specifically to my risk tolerance and time horizon – which I might add is different than the risk tolerance of us as a couple. I would be remiss if I didn’t add that while the market has taken a hit in recent months, my portfolio has weathered the storm quite nicely given the current economic conditions.

Everyone has to find their own comfort level – after all its YOUR money and YOUR future that you are banking on. While past performance is not a predictor of future earnings or performance, I know where my comfort-level is an I’m very happy with the results I’ve achieved through Rod’s methodology and strategic investing.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,

Pam
Well the first thing I’d like to say is that I’m sorry if Pam took it as an indirect attack on her and Rod’s business, it certainly wasn’t intended to be.

Secondly, Pam’s reply didn’d address the key point of the research I was reporting: it was investment advisers whose judgment was influenced (primed) by what they had just read, although no doubt consumers are susceptible to being primed in the same way.

So how could someone in the investment business use research like that which I referenced, which opens a veritable can of worms regarding the veracity of investment advice?

From the point of view of the investment advice they offer, other research on subliminal influence and priming shows that its effects are reduced, or removed altogether, where people are aware that something could prime them.  So, provided Rod recognises that he could be unconsciously primed to give different advice on the basis of what they read and hear, they are somewhat less likely to do so.

[Incidentally, I'm certain that none of the very rational and analytical investment advisers and accountants that took part in the research believed their advice was the by-product of something they'd just read.  This isn't a reflection on the individual, it's a reflection of how our brains work.]

Perhaps more importantly this information is an opportunity for them to differentiate from their competitors.  In their position this is exactly the sort of information I would communicate to potential clients, along with an overview of the systems in place to make the advice offered as rational and robust as possible (something that seems to be a real strength of theirs).

Rest assured, there is nothing like providing a genuine source of anxiety in your consumer’s mind regarding the risk of using a competitor, for that competitor to seem far less attractive.  Handled the wrong way knocking the competition can be alienating, but when you have scientific studies to quote it’s not you that’s doing the knocking, it’s implicit (or explicit if you point out that “very few other investment specialists are aware of the fact that…”).

I hope that this makes for a more constructive post. 

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling Add new tag, analysis, consumer behaviour, marketing communication, priming, psychology

Perhaps some of the most interesting blog debate I’ve read recently has been on Rod’s Personal Investment Strategies blog. 

It’s been a while since I did any consumer behaviour research with financial institutions, but in many ways my journey into consumer behaviour and away from traditional consumer research began during a consumer focus group about pension choice, back in the 1990s. 

It was the fourth long and tedious group discussion with people who were considering investing in a pension scheme, during which they told me how they wanted independent advice, a range of funds and a provider with good financial security.  At the end, after everyone was getting up to go, one of the group asked another, who had been a little more vociferous than the rest, where he was planning to get his pension.  The reply led to several of the group soliciting the details of someone who I recognised was an ‘industrial’ insurance salesman (i.e. not independent).  What’s more, they didn’t ask who he represented, how financially secure his company was or how many funds he offered.

I realised that I was going away to write my report on what they’d all said; meanwhile they were all about go and do something entirely different.

I’m aware of studies that have found people tend to like stocks that have readable names (as opposed to abstract or technical-sounding ones), and that people tend to select things in general that begin with the same first letter as their own name. 

These reflect the way the unconscious mind works, by generating a feeling based on familiarity, which is then consciously de-coded (erroneously) as being a ‘good’ choice.

Last week another study shed light on the power of the unconscious mind’s influence in this apparently rational world: a study conducted by the University of Haifa found that the investment selections of a group of investment advisers and accountants  was strongly influenced by what type of article they were given to read before making a selection.

Those who were given an article on someone who took big risks and was successful, rated a stock they were shown as being more attractive (more valuable for investment) than those who were shown the same stock after reading an article about someone who had been successful after avoiding a risky decision.

All the participants gave their assessment of the fund on the basis of the same financial report.

So it seems an investment advisers advice might have just as much to do with what he’s read that morning in the paper, or a story he has heard from someone else, as it does a ‘rational’ assessment of the data for that company.

Studies like these on the power of priming don’t make for particularly comfortable reading for anyone who likes to believe they’re balanced, rational and analytically-minded.  However, understanding the way our brains work is critical to understanding our customers’ behaviour.

Philip Graves

Source: University of Haifa (2009, April 28). Reading Reports Involving Risk-taking Affects Financial Decision Making. ScienceDaily.

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling analysis, consumer behaviour, investments, priming, psychology

One of the subjects that I think should be of interest to all consumer researchers is the law.

Not all that Jerome Vs Willensby in 1869 case law stuff, I can’t see much application for that, not studying the statute books either.  I’m talking about evidence, how it’s collected and how much weight can reasonably be attached to it.

Given their importance in the legal process, a lot of work has been done to examine the accuracy of eye-witness testimony.  It strikes me that if there were any question over people’s ability to accurately report on an event they witness involving someone else then similar problems may well exist when relying on a person’s ability to accurately report their own experiences.

In fact, given the role of the conscious mind as a post-rationalising device that has no direct access to the unconscious mechanisms that trigger our behaviour, there is reasonable argument to expect self-witnessing to be even less accurate.

So do these studies suggest eye-witnesses are reliable?

In a word, no.

One recent study for the journal Law and Human Behaviour found that false eye witness testimony contributed to more than three quarters of wrongful convictions (that were accurately resolved using DNA evidence).

A recently released study by psychologists at Iowa State University faked a crime in front a group of students and asked them to identify the perpetrator from photographs of five suspects, none of whom was the actual thief.  Just 16% of the 200 people interviewed said none of them was guilty.  Those who had picked rated their confidence in their selection as, on average, six out of ten.

When the witnesses were told that one of the five had confessed over 90% picked out one of the people from the line up and the average level of confidence increased from 6 to 8.5.  Remember, the thief wasn’t any of those pictured.

There are numerous theories about why these inaccuracies occur.  One study has found that  people focus so heavily on one dramatic or traumatic aspect of a scene (such as the gun in an armed raid) that they don’t really see much of anything else. 

Another has found that people have a very limited capacity for retaining information; as little as two pieces of information may be all that is retained from an event in the past.

From my own work, the nature of the questioning process is such that people can be unconsciously appealed to be helpful and to please the person asking the question, as a result they unwittingly (and equally unconsciously) prioritise trying to say something that will satisfy the interpersonal exchange that’s taking place at that moment over a ruthless reappraisal of the past.

This issue is just one of the reasons I’m incredibly wary of relying on consumers’ accounts of their consumer behaviour when I conduct research for clients.

My consumer behaviour company works on the premise that, when it comes to designing consumer research studies, it’s far better to assume customers can’t tell us what they think than to believe that they can or will.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, consumer research consumer behaviour, consumer research, eye witness, psychology