What are concerns in research in behavioral approaches?

How does that work?

Changing behavior is usually not that simple. But knowledge of behavioral psychology helps develop solutions that do work.

If you want to change the behavior of your target audience, you must first have a good understanding of how that behavior works. Moreover, you want to know if all your hard work is having an effect. And that’s where research comes in.

Behavior & research

At MarketResponse, we have been conducting research for many different clients, audiences and industries for over 35 years. Therefore, we know that behavioral research sometimes requires a different approach. Here are the lessons we have learned from behavioral research:

1. Make sure you have formulated the target behavior and audience very sharply to ensure that your research is relevant and clear.
2. Use existing knowledge and expertise to map behavior. There is probably a lot of knowledge already in-house, so you don’t have to start from scratch. So grab those old reports, survey your colleagues and search for studies on Google Scholar.
3. Use – when available – data that records actual behavior. Actual behavior is always more powerful than reported behavior that you pick up from interviews or questionnaire surveys. Especially when it comes to online behavior, data is often available. Or, of course, you can always throw in a few hours of the good old turfing. The big advantage of data is that your impact becomes highly visible.
4. Interviews are a good and instructive research method. But stay aware of the pitfalls. Memory is a sieve. Also, people don’t always find the right words. And some things do not allow themselves to be explained at all in an interview; people are a black box to themselves, not everything goes consciously. At the same time, respondents want to do well and present a positive image of themselves. The result: interviews that are great fun, but don’t teach you much about behavior.
5. then do you address it? Try to stay as close as possible to the behavior you are investigating. For example, we conducted interviews about drinking & driving on location: in a parking lot around restaurant closing time. In this type of interview, it is important to create an open, loose and confidential atmosphere, apply projective techniques and make the conversation small, practical and concrete. Stay away from intentions and stories about “other people.
6. Make use of observations. See what people actually do. Or conversely, don’t do. Hopefully they will have time for a brief conversation. Observations can help you better understand an issue and give you inspiration about the “why” of behavior. For example, for a study, we traveled with international train passengers to experience their train journey and were able to directly question our observations in short conversations.
7. Quantitative research through questionnaires helps determine which behavioral factors are most influential. That way, you’ll soon know where to expect the greatest effect. Quantitative data also allows you to specify your target audience using regression and segmentation analyses. At MarketResponse, we have extensive experience in conducting quantitative research using the CASI approach, for example on taking cash abroad.
8. When you have come up with a plan to change behavior, of course you want to know if it works. Setting up an experiment is then the solution. Preferably directly in practice (via A-B tests, for example). At MarketResponse, we conducted an experiment to optimize the layout and structure of the invitations for our surveys. We deployed different versions and looked at the effects on click behavior.

In short: the rules of “good research” also apply in behavioral research, but there is just a little more to it.

Have a question about your research? We’d love to think with you! We’d love to help you at MarketResponse!

Please contact Floriska, Wouter or Lotteke.