Qualitative Research: Part 2

Qualitative Research: Part 2

Slide 1

In part one of this lecture, I talked about the different types of exploratory research and then talked about two types of qualitative research: in-depth interviewing and focus groups. Part two of this lecture will discuss different types of qualitative research methods.

Slide 2

The basic theory behind projective techniques is that people may—for social desirability reasons—be reluctant to express their true opinions, especially when they are identified with those opinions. With projective techniques, it’s relatively safer for respondents to provide their opinions because seemingly those opinions are not self reflective.

Slide 3

This cartoon illustrates the rationale behind projective techniques. The little boy, who believes that boys are not supposed to be afraid of the dark or scared by nightmares, is unwilling to express that he has those feelings. However, the teddy bear is not the little boy and does not need to be brave; as a result,the boy is comfortable assigning those feelings to his teddy bear. In essence, projective techniques work this way. You are projecting your opinions onto a safe person or object.

Slide 4

Basically, projective techniquespresent respondents with ambiguous, unstructured stimuli and ask them to respond to those stimuli in some fashion. These research techniques were inspired by the motivation-research binge of the 1950’s. During that period, Ernest Dichter and other then-famous marketing gurus were proponents of taking a Freudian perspectiveto understand consumers and their motivations. Many projective techniques are based on the belief that people are unaware of their subconscious buying motives and these techniques allow respondents to reveal these motives in a non-personally-threatening way.

Slide 5

The remainder of this lecture presents many examples of different projective techniques. The examples fall into five categories: The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)—as called by psychologists—also is called a cartoon completion test or cartoon technique, word association test, sentence completion test, unfinished scenario completion, and third-person role playing. Regardless of technique, the basic rationale behind each one is the same: people are reluctant or unaware of their true motivations and these techniques allow people to reveal those motivations.

Slide 6

In this TAT, a supervisor says the following to an office administrator or data entry person or perhaps clerical person: “Do you think we need to upgrade our word processing software?” Respondents may have many opinions about upgrades and their necessity, but may be reluctant to express them or even be unaware of them. By answering ‘as if’ the woman in the picture, respondents project their beliefs about word processing software upgrades onto her, which is safer than taking ownership of those opinions. Respondents might project the woman saying something like, “Software upgrades are a rip off” or “It’s critical to upgrade software whenever possible to maintain compatibility.” These ‘as if’ answers project respondents’ true beliefs about upgrades onto a safe target for those beliefs.

Slide 7

Although I’ll date myself with this example, I recall a time in the 60’s and 70’s when spray furniture polish was considered an inferior product that provided convenient but lower quality wood protection. If I continued to hold that belief, then the comment I would project onto the woman on the right to the question from the woman on the left—“Why do you use that cleaner?”—might be “Well, I needed to clean this quickly because my mother-in-law is coming for a visit and I’ll do it properly next week.” Such a response clearly indicates my beliefs about the inferiority of this product. Alternatively, I might say something like “These spray waxes are just as good as any paste wax, far easier to use, and cheaper, so why would anybody want to use anything but this product?” That response suggests an entirely different set of beliefs about spray furniture waxes.

Slide 8

Another example, which also no doubt dates me, entailsmetal versus wood tennis racquets. When introduced back in the 1970s, the advantage of such racquets was that they allowed less powerful players to hit a tennis ball harder. The issue with metal versus wood could, to some extent, be considered a macho issue; specifically, ‘real men don’t use steel tennis racquets’. Asking that question directly in a structured interview might fail miserably because of social desirability bias. By allowing male respondents to project their answer onto the female to the right of the male tennis player, researchers might discover that macho-related beliefs made men in the 1970s reluctant to adopt metal tennis racquets, which would suggest the promotional efforts and advertising themes necessary to counter these beliefs.

Slide 9

There’s no way to know how someone would respond to this TAT. The issue could be that we are trying to explore convenience and that having these machines around and readily available may be great. The issue here could be one of security. The woman could say something like “We’re more likely to be robbed while you’re doing this than we are if you just keep the money and wait until the bank is open tomorrow or Monday.” Asking direct questions about safety and security may not produce answers that reveal people’s true attitudes.

Slide 10

Corvettes have a certain image, their drivers have a certain image, and the rest of us have a certain image about people who drive Corvettes. Asking direct questions about that image may not provide answers reflective of people’s true attitudes. Asking Herman, who has a huge smirk, where he’s going in his new Corvette, allows respondents to give a truer indication of their images of Corvettes than any direct questioning might solicit.

Slide 11

Consider the long-runningand award-winning “Got Milk?” ad campaign. What would have inspired milk producers to reinforce the idea that milk is a beverage consumed by young, active people? It’s possible that their researchers used projective devices something like the one shown on this slideand received responses that indicated it was wise to convince younger, active people to consume more milk. It’s possible that many respondentsgave the answer ‘Ms. A’ to the question “Would you think Ms. A or Ms. B would drink more milk and why?” because she appears older, less active, dowdy, and out of shape. As a result of such responses, milk producers would have decidedto reposition their product so that it would be more attractive to youngerand more active consumers (who comprise a meaningful market segment).

Slide 12

In this TAT example, respondents project comments onto both the husband and the wife. The dialogue between them may reflect the dynamic between spouses who need new automobile tires. Back in the 1960s,many respondents of both sexes might have projected the following conversation onto the couple:

• Wife: “The gas station attendant thinks our tires are bald and we need to buy new ones, what do you think?’
• Husband: “I know exactly what we should buy.”

Respondents today might project this very different conversation onto the couple:

• Wife: “I looked at our tires and realized they were bald so I went to our local tire shop and purchased four new 50,000-mile-rated all-weather tires because the brand is highly rated by Consumer Reports.”
• Husband: “Yes dear, whatever you say.”

In many cases, the dynamic of couple decision making has shifted markedly during the last half century, and unstructured stimuli like this one might reveal that shift. Also, identifying the key decision maker in the decision to buy new automobile tires would help tire manufacturers to design and place their ads more effectively.

Slide 13

Apple computers have been completing with Microsoft-OS-based PCs since the early 1980s. Interestingly, the TAT shown on this slide allows respondents to project what the person on the right both says and thinks in the response to the person on the left stating he is going to buy an Apple II computer. Respondents might project the person on the right says something like, “Well, Apple II isn’t the business standard. You’re much safe with IBM computer architecture” but thinks something like “Apple computers are so much neater.” By allowing respondents to project both the statements and the thoughts of the person on the right, marketing researchers may discover far more about people’s attitudes towards Apple II computers.

Slide 14

This and the next slide show a series of pictures. Researchers ask respondents to concoct a story consistent with the pictures. In the first set of pictures, it’s unclear whether or not those price points are meaningful or not and in what way. For example, a respondent might offer the following story: “A woman goes to the store, sees the $0.49 beauty cream, and knows that such inexpensive cream can’t be any good. Later, she sees the $5.00 beauty cream, and reluctantly acknowledges that good beauty cream is that expensive.” Alternatively, a respondent might offer this story: “A woman sees the $0.49 beauty cream and buys it because she believes all beauty creams are alike. Later, when she sees the $5.00 beauty cream, she wonders about women who would be silly enough to pay 10 times more for the same thing in a slightly more attractive package.” Hence, the story projected onto these two pictures could create vastly different impressions about women’s sense of the appropriate price points for beauty creams.

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Slide 16

Here’s an example that addresses an issue that would be absurd to assess with direct questioning. Supposing an eye glass manufacturer sensed that people associated different types of people—in terms of income, age, and education—with different styles of glass frames. If you ask that question directly, people would think you came from Mars! Nonetheless, people may associate different types of people with different styles of glass frames.

Instead of direct questioning, a researcher could use a projective device suggested by this slide. First, the researcher would create three similar groups of respondents. Then, one group would be shown the left-most picture, the second group would be shown the middle picture, and the third group would be shown the right-most picture. Next, each person in those three groups would be asked to indicate the age, income, and education of the man in the picture. Finally, the researcher would compare the average responses among the three groups to determine if people believe that buyersof glasses with a round-shaped frame tend to make more money and tend to be older than buyers of glasses with a square or rectangular-shaped frame. If true, then this finding might improve the design and targeting of ads for glass-frame manufacturersand distributors. This may sound silly, but people’s attitudes often predict their behaviors, so using the methodsneeded for discovering those attitudes can help marketers to design and promotemore attractive products to be sold at appropriate price points.

Slide 17

Another projective device used by marketers is word association. Unlike movie portrayals of a psychotherapist using word association as part of a therapy session, respondents’ answers are irrelevant. Instead, what’s of interest is the time needed to answer. The assumption, according to psychologists like Jung—a student and contemporary of Freud—is that the longer the response time, the more complex are respondents’ thoughts about thenamed entity.In essence, greater response latency equates with being more conflicted about thenamed entity. As conflicted people are less like to be loyal buyers, first identifying conflicted consumers and then studying their related attitudes and behaviors may help marketers to improve their offerings and promotional efforts.

Slide 18

Sentence completion tasks are totally unstructured and provide no hint about appropriate responses.Consider the statement “People who drink beer are (fill in the blank).” There are thousands, if not millions, of word combinations that respondents could use to complete that sentence.“A man who drinks light beer is (fill in the blank).” If respondents doubt the manliness of guys who drink light beer, then that doubt might be reflected in the way they complete that sentence. “Imported beer is most liked by (fill in the blank).” Again, if respondents believe that imported beers are not consumed by ‘real’ men, then that attitude might be reflected in their words to complete those sentences.Finally, “A woman will drink beer when (fill in the blank).”Completions like “…she’s very thirsty and there’s nothing else to drink,” or “at a sports event and wine is unavailable,” or “…her boyfriend/husband buys a pitcher at a bar and gives her a glass,” suggest that respondents don’t believe women like beer. If the goal is to understand people’s attitudes about beer drinkers in general, light beer drinkers, imported beer drinkers, and female beer drinkers, then this sentence completion task might help assess these attitudes without asking direct questions that might trigger social desirability response bias.

Slide 19

As a different example of sentence completion, here are three sentences for automatic teller machines.

Slide 20

In comparison of sentence completion, unfinished scenarios are more complex. “Bill had just received a large commission check and because he was out of town was going to deposit it in an automatic teller machine because (fill in the blank), but his friend told him he should do something else because (fill in the blank). This completion task relates to the earlier cartoon that shows two people sitting in a carstanding by an ATM, and shows another way to revealpeople’sATM-related opinions about safety, ability of different banks in different towns to coordinate service, and the likelihood that depositsare lost, misplaced, or unrecorded for an excessive period. Direct questions might not reveal anything about people’s general attitudes about ATMs and using them to make deposits.

Slide 21

The last of these projective devices is third-person role playing. This slide summarizes a classic example of motivation research from the mid-1950s. In this example, two similar samples of 50 housewives were randomly selected. Both sets of housewives received a shopping list, were told the list was written by a woman, and then asked to describe that woman. As the slide shows, the lists were identical except for one product: one list included Nescafe Instant Coffee, and the other list included Maxwell House Coffee.

Consider trying to assess people’s attitudes about instant coffee. Those Folgers Crystal ads—which seem to have run for decades—always depict an effort to convince a drip/ground-coffee drinker that Folgers Instant Coffee is so good that it could receive rave reviews if served at the best restaurants. The claim is to convince ad viewers that instant coffee is suitable for serving to their most special guests and as a treat forthemselves. In the mid-1950s, people’s opinions about instant versus drip/ground coffee users were very different. The two respondent groups projected very different characters on the shopper who purchased instant versus ground coffee. The housewife who supposedlyboughtinstant coffeewas perceived as lazy, a poor purchase planner, and not an especially good wife; in contrast, the housewife who supposedly bought ground coffee was perceived as not being lazy and being a good wife. Thus, people’s opinions about instant coffee were not especially positive in 1956. Interestingly, this study was re-done in 1970, and the results were opposite; the wife who bought instant coffee was seen as modern, thrifty, and a good spouse, whereas the wife who bought ground coffee was seen as out-of-touch and not an especially good spouse. Comparing the results of the two studies conducted 15 years apart, consumers’ attitudes towards instant coffee changed markedly. This finding would have been difficult to uncover through more structured questionnaires.

Slide 22

Finally, these last three slides depict a combined effort that shows how one might use both cartoons (TATs) and sentence completion tasks to sense people’s impressions about something that they might otherwise respond about in a socially desirable fashion. Consider defensive driving courses. Publicly, peopleagree that defensive driving courses are good for society and that everyoneshould take such a course. Yet, these projective devicesseem to reveal attitudes, commonly expressed among friends, about the value of defensive driving courses to people forced/required to take them. People’s true beliefs about these courses differ markedly from their social-desirability-biased responses.

Slide 23 (No Audio)

Slide 24

As this summary slide indicates, people’s responses about defensive driving classes are not especially positive. Question #3 refers to the cartoon from the previous slide in which respondents are asked to guess what the person sitting in class is thinking; none of the most frequently given responses are positive. The same is true about Question #4; people’s stated versus true attitudes about defensive driving differ markedly.

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