How Researchers should learn from Mentalists
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By Dennis Nordstrom in General Published: Wednesday, 29 October 08 - 11:30 PM (GMT) Last Updated: Thursday, 30 October 08 - 01:47 AM (GMT) |
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Having watched the show "The Mentalist" for a while now I have picked up on one of my old interests, namely the power of suggestion and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Mentalists are usually stage-performers who consciously use NLP and suggestion as tools to create the illusion of having psychic powers. Thus they will often illustrate powers such as mind-reading or talking to audience members' dead relatives.
My question in regards to suggestion and NLP is however: Is it possible to unconsciously suggest ideas in to research-subjects' mind, and if so how do we as researchers minimise the risk of doing this? Well, I believe that we need to learn a bit from mentalists, and become aware of our own being and that we need to learn the basics of suggestion.
In this article, I particularly want to focus on evaluative research and how researchers sometimes suggest their opinions on to respondents' opinions of prototypes. As an example I would like you to imagine a scenario where the researcher enters a house of a middle-class family, in order to conduct an interview on the father of the family, who is a 34-year-old business-manager. The researcher represents a large software-company and has brought a few software and hardware prototypes with him. The purpose of the interview for the researcher is to test prototypes, as well as to relate these with the everyday of the family father. The researcher conducted the preliminary research that led to the design of the prototype, and has therefore a positive opinion about the prototypes. The respondent is paid a substantial amount for his time, and is asked to evaluate the prototype as objectively as possible. Besides that the respondent has a desire to do well in the research, so that he will be asked to be a part of other research-projects in the future.
The researcher asks about the design-areas that the design team were unsure of, in order to gain an idea of whether or not the prototype will be relevant for the respondent. In the end of the interview, the researcher asks the respondent whether he has anything to add whereto the respondent says: "No, I think it is a great idea. When can I see this on the market?"
Does the above scenario sound familiar? I have experienced a few incidents quite familiar to that scenario. So my question in regards to the scenario is: Do we as researchers sometimes, without knowing it, subject the respondents to suggestion and are there ways for us to get an idea of whether the respondent is actually telling us what he truly thinks?
I have thought of a few things that I would like to try in order to minimise the risk of suggestion and tainted research results. These ideas have all derived more or less in the idea of suggestion between researcher and respondent. A list of these ideas and a brief description for each of them follows.
1) Include "bad ideas" in the prototype
2) Become aware of voice, intonation, syntax, and body language when talking to respondents
3) Give the respondents a "Rorschach inkblot test" of prototypes
4) Learn the basics of "reading lies" as a way of evaluating respondents' answers and opinions
2) Since suggestion is caused through body language, facial expressions, intonation of voice, and the way we phrase or paraphrase sentences researchers need to be aware of how we sound and we need to be aware of exactly what we say when we say it. Whether respondents use similar vocabularies as we did or whether they mimic our facial expressions are clues to be aware of. If they did, they might on a sub-conscious level have been exposed to suggestion and thus their evaluation of a prototype will be tainted. On the other hand if they are true to their own vocabularies, their own facial expressions etc. it is likely that their opinions and views of the prototypes were candid and honest.
3) Also, I got this idea of taking facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice completely out of the equation and simply have a Rorscharch-prototype test where the respondents, similarly to the psychological inkblot test, are asked to quickly call out their association when showed a prototype.
4) Finally, I believe that there is a lot we can learn from mentalists when it comes to the skill of "reading lies". I recall having seen the British mentalist Derren Brown outperform a lie-detector in an episode of his show. If this is a skill that can be taught, I believe that it will be of great value to researchers evaluating a product. Researchers should be able to, just as good poker players, to recognise whether a respondent is providing answers they believe we want to hear, or whether they truly think what they say.
Human nonverbal communication is a powerful thing, and when doing evaluative research it should not be disregarded. Anthropologists are trained in Reflexivity and learn to judge their own role in a research setting, and I feel compelled to say that this article is about the Reflexivity of human-relations.
Therefore, I believe that we can learn a lot from the "mentalism" disciplin. Of course we would learn the basics with the intention of avoiding suggestion, rather than invoking it.
On the next given chance I will try out my 4 above mentioned research-experiments, and I promise I will follow up here with the reflections of those experiments as soon as they are ready.
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