The Unspoken Unconscious

The early excesses of the motivational approach were curtailed. In Imms’ paper, however, he concludes that this period left a ‘psychological legacy’ for qualitative market research. The psychological theories that displaced psychoanalysis as reference points for qualitative research still acknowledge the existence of the unconscious, albeit framing it in a very different way.

A review of qualitative researcher websites and directory entries today shows a common thread that reveals this legacy. Concepts emerge such as ‘exploring motivations’, ‘getting closer to the consumer’, ‘understanding the consumer mindset’, ‘encouraging emotional as well as rational reactions’, and ‘digging deeper’. As Valentine and Evans point out ⁵, ‘the notion of ‘going deeper’ has now become a taken for granted meaning of ‘good’ moderation.’

We commonly work with the idea that respondents cannot frame their thoughts easily in words. Sometimes they are not even aware of how much they know about a brand, nor their feelings on the subject, until the researcher explores it with them. In-depth qualitative research requires us to access material that is not readily available to consciousness, and/or is not easily expressed by the respondent.

This material includes:

• Stored, relatively unprocessed material: Things brought to mind using specific techniques, for example collages and associations to elicit brand imagery.

• The habitual: Processes that have been automated by the brain. This comprises much regular behaviour, including driving and some forms of shopping. Once you have learnt to ride a bike, it is awfully difficult to explain it in words.

• The cultural: Assumptions about the right way to do things that are invisible to the person who owns them; the socio-cultural frames people use to interpret the world.

• The illogical or unreasonable: Believing that if you eat a chocolate bar really quickly the calories won’t count!

• The emotional: Feelings, moods, impulses that affect apparently rational choice processes

• The Reality Builders: Prejudices, self-justifications, distortions for the sake of congruence, self-beliefs, reference groups, defence mechanisms - all the things that make an individual’s version of reality.

• Archetypes, myths and dreams: Celebrities, heroes, rituals, tragedies, the underlying stories of our lives.

Broadly speaking, these are all aspects of the unconscious, although few researchers would ever claim to be working with the unconscious, sub-conscious, pre-conscious or any other variety.

Frank Tallis, in his history of the unconscious ⁶ , points out that scientists and laymen alike are not keen on the idea that we may have unconscious processes affecting our judgements and decisions. The Freudian view of the unconscious, with its emphasis on the baser instincts, is particularly hard to take.

The idea of the unconscious threatens us because it opposes our sense of ourselves as rational actors in the world. Small wonder then that research literature makes little overt reference to the unconscious, and why researchers stop short of saying what they are ‘digging deeper’ into.

It is time to redefine and rehabilitate the concept. We are working with inputs and processes that occur without conscious awareness, and the researcher’s toolkit of techniques and methods is designed to elicit and explain these.

We need, however, to do more than acknowledge the role of the unconscious in the context of qualitative research. It has also played a pivotal role in the creation of the wider consumer society and, as such, it underpins our entire professional enterprise.
 

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