Consumer Psychology

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Qualitative Research: Storytelling as a Window into Consumer Decisions, Beliefs and Behaviors

It’s been well-established that much of human decision making is quick, nonconscious and driven by emotion.
Influential books like Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” and Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” have popularized this understanding of how humans think.
For consumer insights folks, researching this process is challenging. Some methods attempt to tap what Kahneman calls the “System 1 mode of thinking,” but it is questionable whether these methods actually measure nonconscious processes. And what’s more, these methods fall short of providing the kind of rich, human insights that inspire brand teams.

A Journey Towards the Human Conscience: Finding Unique Human Insights

Consumer Psychology, Consumer Research, Human Insights

“Learning about the human being behind his or her consumer urges must be based upon respect for his or her individuality, cultural aspects, lifestyles, beliefs and passions.”This quote is from an article that I wrote 14 years ago when I left my career as a psychoanalist and started my journey into marketing research. At that […]

Consumidores: Todos somos Mas, quem somos?

Consumer Psychology, Human Insights

Ser humano é ser múltiplo, muitas vezes volátil e, continuamente, em aperfeiçoamento.Ser humano é ser social, é ser político, é ser religioso, é ser ateu, é ser produtor, criador, é ser cidadão, é ser consumidor… Ser humano é uma condição e não um estado.Há séculos o ser humano vem sendo estudado em toda a sua […]

Marketing Research Methods: Shhhh! Just Listen…

Consumer Psychology, Consumer Research, Human Insights

As a practicing clinical psychologist/psychoanalyst in the world of marketing research, I’ve come to realize that I listen differently from most consumer insights researchers. As a therapist, I listen on several levels at once and monitor my own thoughts, feelings, and memories. I observe body language, both that of the speaker and my own. I […]

Consumer Psychology: Conscious and Unconscious Competing Desires

Consumer Psychology, Human Insights, Uncategorized

Sure, sure. I know Freud is dead. American psychoanalysis had its 100th birthday last year and Sigmund Freud died back in 1938. The trend in contemporary psychology has been away from anything that has its roots in psychoanalysis. Hardly anyone mentions anymore the three classic parts of the mind posited by Freud: Id, Ego, and […]

Understanding Consumer Behavior

Consumer Psychology, Human Insights

To be human is to be multifaceted. It is to be social, a politician, religious, an atheist, a producer, a creator, a citizen, and a consumer.To be human is a condition and not a state.For centuries, we humans have been studied in all our many facets. Various sciences have been deeply devoted to understanding humans in […]