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Open or Closed?

Open or Closed?

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I’m running a mobile study at the moment where participants record their daily behaviour – and there’s a big difference between the open and closed responses I’m getting…

Hot house respondents
Half my sample was interviewed in detail about their behaviour (in a face to face interview) and then asked to continue the study recording what happens at home on their app for the next month. We called these ‘hot housers’. Their responses were closed. Only the moderators could see and comment on their posts.

Light Touch respndents
The other half started their posts before being interviewed. We decided to leave their responses open so that these ‘light touch’ respondents could see what each other was up to. We thought that this would help the participants in the light touch group get a sense from others about what to do.

We were right, but not in a good way. The light touch respondents posts were considerably less rich and detailed.

Never mind, I thought. As soon as I’ve interviewed them face to face and re-set expectations about what I want, their posts will gain weight.

But that’s not what happened. Despite respondents agreeing that they would post more, and seeming to understand why I wanted more, they have continued to give less detailed posts, even after the face-to-face interview.

Why? Because they are still being ‘social’ and doing what others do. If everyone in their light touch group is only doing the basics, then they feel that is what is expected of them, despite my instructions to the contrary.

Conclusions: beware the open question! Remember we love to copy each other! Never forget the power of the group and social influence.

Work arounds: make sure that the you have a seed respondent posting a lot of stuff to help higher the bar on expectations. Or keep it closed!

kath-handonheart

Kath Rhodes, Qual Street Owner

I love love learning and so I invest time and resources with Ambreen and Claire into exploring social psychology, neuro science, creativity and new techniques in research. Read all about it and help yourself to the ideas that will deliver your business the insight it needs

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@Qualstreet on 17 March 2023