Continuing my article on the problem of using focus groups to investigate consumer’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. (Part one is here.)

4. People are Lazy
Another problem that stems from our thoughts not being created in the vacuum of our own minds is the laziness of our thought processes.

If I ask you to think of a number now, what would you say? Seven is most likely, for some reason it is the number of people tend to pick, but it is also likely that you would pick a number between one and 10.

Most of the time when people say ‘pick a number’ it is in this range.  Rather than go to the mental effort of questioning what parameters the questioner might have in mind, the easy thing to do is pick on this basis.

What’s interesting though, is what happens when you prime someone to think of a bigger number, for example by asking them a question like, “How many Dalmatians were there in the movie?”

Then, simply because people have been thinking of a three digit number, they are far more likely to “randomly” think of a number that is in the tens or hundreds when you subsequently ask them to ‘think of a number’.

In a focus group, when the subject matter is often mundane, the easy thing to think is whatever the previous person has said, or at least to build on that.

This doesn’t feel to the person concerned as though they are not expressing their own, free, natural thoughts, so sincerity is not the issue. But can you really say that this response is unbiased?

5. Thinking as a Group (GroupThink)
In the 1970s the American psychologist Irving Janis recognised that groups could easily make decisions with insufficient critical analysis and too much regard for the prevailing point of view.

He identified eight symptoms of groupthink, seven of which are relevant to focus groups:

i The illusion of invulnerability creates excessive optimism that encourages risk-taking: a group of consumers in a focus group is almost totally invulnerable.  They have anonymity and no subsequent accountability for what they say.

ii Collective rationalisation – discounting warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions, rather than reconsidering: one could argue that the whole aim of a focus group is to identify a consensus view.  Most companies are looking for a single solution; which product to launch, which advert works best, which packaging design is most popular, and so on.

iii  Unquestioning belief in the morality of the of the group causes members to ignore the consequences of their actions: how many focus group participants are mindful of the investment a company might make on the basis of the findings from such research?

iv Stereotyping those outside who are opposed to the group in a derogatory way: in my experience focus group participants rarely take the moderating influence of a facilitator seriously if they are getting carried away with an idea?

Janis suggests such forceful opinions may simply be a by-product of the group mentality.

v Direct pressure on dissenters — members are put under pressure not to express arguments that go against the group’s views: how many people taking part in a focus group on a relatively banal consumer issue would be willing to make a stand on principle even without pressure from the other people present?

vi Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the group consensus: again one would have to question how forceful a respondent with an opposing view would be willing to be if they felt the group consensus differed from their own opinion.

vii  The illusion of unanimity amongst group members – people take silence as agreement: rarely, if ever, does a research moderator actively canvass the opinions of everyone present. This is partly because it would break the flow of discussion and create a very unnatural interaction. It’s also because, with a group of several people and a finite amount of time, it severely restricts the amount that can be covered.

You can see, I hope, why I think there is a strong argument to say that focus groups create a fertile breeding ground for Groupthink.

6. Following the Leader
Rarely do people have the same degree of experience and commitment to a research topic.

The focus group format – whereby a question or topic is put to the group and the group is invited to respond – encourages the person with the strongest involvement and view and / or the most confident person present to speak first.

People observing group dynamics within unstructured groups (those that have been put together rather than organised) find that often the person who speaks first emerges as the leader of the group.

Groups are rarely, if ever, egalitarian. However well the moderator works there will emerge some hierarchy through which one person’s view leads the responses of the others.

I mentioned in part one of this article that there are one or two occasions when I believe focus groups can serve as legitimate market research tools for consumer understanding.

Idea Generation
Provided that the aim of the process is to generate ideas, rather than determine their merit, the fact that group interaction changes what and how people think becomes an advantage.

Topics with High Social Currency
If you are exploring topics that people derive a benefit from discussing, in other words where the subject matter is of a type that consumers would routinely discuss in groups, then triggering such an exchange and noting what ensues can lead to useful insights.

I hasten to add that, for example, the fact that you ask your friend what she has in her sandwich, doesn’t mean hosting an eight person, ninety minute debate about sandwich marketing would be a legitimate topic for focus groups.

You can see why, most of the time, resorting to a focus group is a risk thing to do.  The likelihood of getting a powerfully expressed but inaccurate response is extremely high.

Image courtesy: Kamal Zharif Kamaludin