Bureau West

Cognitive dissonance describes situations where people do things that contradict their beliefs.  For example, let’s say I believe I am very careful when it comes to spending money, yet I buy an expensive car.  Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort that comes with that type of discrepancy.  Human beings look to reduce those feelings of discomfort; in this example, I would need to add a belief that resolves the contradiction.  For example, I might tell myself that the car is well-built and therefore worth the investment.  Or that it’s important that others consider me to be a successful person.

Clearly, cognitive dissonance is extremely important in marketing.  Successful marketers look to understand the different beliefs that may encourage or discourage the purchase of their products and then try to figure out how to overcome the beliefs that are getting in the way and accentuate the beliefs that will support making the purchase.

Cognitive dissonance isn’t just about getting people to overspend on luxury items.  Take charitable giving as an example: most people believe themselves to be kind and generous people, but few give to charity.  They have other beliefs that get in the way, for example, “there are so many people in need, if I gave to all of them, I’d have no money left.”  One way successful charities get people to donate is to focus on the needs of a specific person in order to counter that belief.

How can you uncover the conflicting beliefs among your customers and prospects?  If behavioral economics has taught us anything, it’s that people consider themselves rational; they don’t like to admit to any behaviors that conflict with their beliefs.  But there’s a loophole: people are happy to point out other people’s irrational behaviors!  Here’s a great exercise to reveal those conflicting beliefs and behaviors.  Ask research participants what people say about your product or service.  That will get you all the rational things participants think about it.  Then ask them what people really think about the product.  That one question does wonders at getting at the irrational beliefs people don’t want to admit to.  Note that the question is asked about “people,” so participants can feel that they’re still rational, and they’re just telling us about the thoughts of all those other irrational people.

Here’s another example: say the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) wanted to get you to attend their annual conference, which will take place in Savannah, GA from January 30 to February 1, 2019 and is open to anyone involved in the design, conduct or analysis or qualitative research.  They might find that people are worried about spending the money on the conference or that there are too many conferences out there to choose from.  The QRCA might emphasize the great line-up of speakers and how important it is to keep up-to-date on what’s going on in qualitative research to ensure you remain valuable to your clients and your internal clients.  And they might emphasize the early-bird rate of $945.  (See what I did there?  I slipped in a commercial for the QRCA conference.  You’re welcome!  And even fuller disclosure: I’m one of the speakers.  I hope to see you there!  Go to qrca.org/2019 for more information.)

Find out what causes cognitive dissonance for your customers.  Call me at 760-469-9266 or email info at bureauwest.com.

 

Sources: Bureau West research; “The Cognitive Dissonance Hiding Behind Strong Brands,” Medium, 4/3/17

“Cognitive biases” are those ways of thinking that aren’t completely rational, but that we do for convenience.  (For example, the “confirmation bias,” where people recall information that supports their existing beliefs.  You may have seen it in focus groups, where an observer seemed to only remember participant statements that agreed with their own opinions!)

There are dozens of different cognitive biases (see Wikipedia’s list here); identifying them can yield important insights to better understand customers and market to them more effectively.  But we don’t have to memorize them all, because Buster Benson created a great cheat sheet here.  (The article actually appeared last year; thank you to my friend and colleague David Spenser for pointing it out.)

Benson categorizes the cognitive biases based on the four problems they help us address:

1. Dealing with too much information (the confirmation bias is one example of a mechanism that addresses this problem)
2. Our need to ascribe meaning to the limited information we have (e.g., stereotyping)
3. The need to make decisions quickly (e.g., the tendency to prefer the simple solution)
4. We can’t remember everything (e.g., forgetting details, remembering only the high points)

Or as he puts it:

In order to avoid drowning in information overload, our brains need to skim and filter insane amounts of information and quickly, almost effortlessly, decide which few things in that firehose are actually important and call those out.

In order to construct meaning out of the bits and pieces of information that come to our attention, we need to fill in the gaps, and map it all to our existing mental models. In the meantime we also need to make sure that it all stays relatively stable and as accurate as possible.

In order to act fast, our brains need to make split-second decisions that could impact our chances for survival, security, or success, and feel confident that we can make things happen.

And in order to keep doing all of this as efficiently as possible, our brains need to remember the most important and useful bits of new information and inform the other systems so they can adapt and improve over time, but no more than that.

And most important for us as marketers, here’s his summary of the ways in which biases lead to errors in the four areas above:

1. We don’t see everything. Some of the information we filter out is actually useful and important.
2. Our search for meaning can conjure illusions. We sometimes imagine details that were filled in by our assumptions, and construct meaning and stories that aren’t really there.
3. Quick decisions can be seriously flawed. Some of the quick reactions and decisions we jump to are unfair, self-serving, and counter-productive.
4. Our memory reinforces errors. Some of the stuff we remember for later just makes all of the above systems more biased, and more damaging to our thought processes.

As marketers, we can “mine” the errors above to find insights that will lead the way to developing more effective marketing.  Let’s find out how cognitive biases can lead to opportunities with your business!  Call me at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “Cognitive Bias Cheat Sheet,” Better Humans, 9/1/16; “List of Cognitive Biases,” Wikipedia; Bureau West research