We’ve always known how suspect people’s answers to our questions can be. It didn’t really take behavioural economics to come along and prove that people were unreliable. We’ve had words like ‘exaggerate’ and ‘unrealistic’ and ‘inaccurate’ and ‘b*llsh*t’ from way back when.

But it’s also true that behavioural economics has banged nails into the coffin marked ‘unreliable’. There are neat experiments to show how above average people perceive themselves to be – and of course we can’t all be better than average. We’re bad at estimating risk, we’re bad at recalling past behaviour, we don’t really see what’s going on… (Remember the gorilla experiment when people were shown quick micro flashes of a gorilla playing in a basketball game? They simply didn’t see it because their brains didn’t expect to, and so ‘wiped’ the visual imprint).

The say-do gap is a real problem for researchers. We’ve spent the last 30 years or more trying to close it.

However, there’s another gap: and it’s perspective taking.

Alison Woods Brooks in her book ‘Talk’ makes the case for how bad we are at taking other people’s perspective (without talking to each other). People revert to ‘egocentric perception’. We access our own experiences, our own mental blueprints and use that material to think into other people’s mindsets.

Unfortunately these intuitive efforts are often flawed.

The solution to getting others’ perspectives – is – you’ve guessed it to ‘ask questions’.

And that leaves us with a conundrum – asking questions seems to lead us to both worse and better outcomes when it comes to understanding people and what they say, do, think and feel…

How to resolve that knotty problem?

Bad questions/ good questions…
Some questions are hard to answer because people don’t and can’t keep account of their behaviour. I’m an avid reader. I filled in a survey recently on books ‘readability’. One of the questions in the survey was how many books I read in a year. Was it more than 50, 20-50, less than 20? I just couldn’t say. I know I wanted it to be the upper end…

There are ways around accuracy that good question design can manage (or other ways of collecting data).

BUT significant to the answer I wanted to give is also my ego, and my sense of self. I wanted to say I read a high number of books because I’m ‘avid’ when it comes to book reading…

My sense of self (my status as book-ish) was running interference. And that really gets in the way of reliability – it is the gorilla in the room…

And worse, when people are talking to each other there’s always a ‘social’ game afoot. The game being one of ‘getting ahead’ and ‘getting along’ with others. We all need to know – ‘who am I in relation to you?’ and we play or jostle for position too. In answering pretty much any question about ourselves, but particularly when in conversation, and even more particularly in group conversations, we have to acknowledge the heady mix of competition and cooperation that’s ever-present (and dynamic).

One-to-one…
One way to close the perspective gap in research is therefore to have one-to-one conversations. It simplifies the dynamic, and if one person in the conversation is the question-asker, then there is less of a co-ordination dance going on. By sharing clear objectives, by asking great questions, and listening receptively, by using follow-up questions, the respondent can feel listened to (and therefore have a sense of ‘key status’ during the encounter). They are the most important person in the conversation because they are the one with the perspective, and the interviewer is the one involved in gaining perspective…

Good qualitative research is therefore often best served by simplifying the conversation and making it an interview-style conversation.

Further ways of closing the perspective gap involve ensuring good conversations:

• Creating comfort and natural flow in the experience: using a mix of shallower, mid-level and deeper questions, using levity and warmth across the conversation
• Switching topics with sufficient frequency and fluency, coming at questions from a number of angles
• Room-reading – using all senses to understand the emotional content of the conversation and responding to what matters to the interviewee
• Reflecting back using the same kind of language and reflecting the interviewee’s style of chat (in an authentic way)
• Checking back – showing the person speaking your understanding of what you’ve heard – so they can build on or modify your understanding,

There are, however, benefits to more complex conversations and interactions: more minds and bodies bring more diversity of experience, knowledge and alternative perspectives. Two is company. Three is a crowd – and that’s because with three people talking you have the possibility of an audience – and that is a whole new (and complicated dynamic). The more people you have in the room, the more conversational combinations you can get into… With a group of four people there’s a potential for six unique relationships, with a group of eight it’s up to twenty-eight unique relationships.

There’s a formula for this: R [N x (N-1)]/2

What we’ve got going on here is group dynamics and that is a lot of perspective and a lot of shifting perspective to be managed.

Within a group (discussion) you have a lot more potential for ‘low relational’ behaviour:

1. The chance for people to withdraw from group and to distance themselves from the ‘work’ being done. I love the term ‘social loafing’, just sitting it out, but of course there might be more ‘withholding’ or ‘judgement’ going on than just benign inactivity
2. Or conversely a participant might dominate or over-talk because they have little need to temper their behaviour across a bigger group

Status play is as complicated as the relationship formula above. Only with each topic switch there’s a chance that the dynamics of status (which can always shift) will get complicated too.

Status is the outcome of our ‘getting ahead/ getting along’ social needs. We confer status on people because of their dominance and/ or their virtue and/ or their success. One minute in a group you might ‘rule’ – talking about football – the next minute you slide down the ladder when it comes to your low weekly wage, your family set up, your level of attractiveness, how funny you are… And in conversation people are status monitoring – how they are doing vs others…

So why would you to try to ‘get perspective’ in the group setting? Isn’t it the ideal setting for the say-do gap to emerge?

Short answer – ‘yes’.

Long answer – not necessarily. And the reason why is ‘cooperation’. Humans are playing the get-ahead game, but they are also playing to get along. If groups are managed well they can be the most fertile ground for perspective sharing. With new and different perspectives come stronger and better ideas and understanding.

However, it’s imperative to get the cooperation juices flowing.

Here are some thoughts about how to achieve cooperation in a group setting…

• Synchrony – humans can have a ‘hive mind’ where we are tuning into and being part of the bigger group. We need to feel safe and secure, relaxed and happy. We then need to be in our bodies, marching to the beat of the same drum. Almost literally that. We need to be in rhythm with one another, so clapping, chanting, singing, marching, clicking together will create synchrony
• Shared goals – the group needs to be working towards an agreed on aim or goal together, something they can all get behind
• High arousal / High Pleasure ‘quadrant’ – the group needs to be excited, motivated, energetic – physically aroused and having fun (as opposed to Low arousal and Low Pleasure). There needs to be laughter, games, music, good times…
• Distributed status – like the players on the football field – everyone knows their job and how to support and link up play. The goalie saves goals, the fox in the box scores. The winger passes a long ball to the striker …
• Relationship formula – make the most of the combinations and permutations of shared experiences and perspectives – 8 people in a room gives you up to twenty-eight unique relationships… make time for everyone to talk, listen, explore…
• Cooperation goal, not group-think outcome – if we set ourselves up for success we’ll be creating the conditions for cooperation, but we also need to look for the ‘red flags’ associated with a group working together – group think… too much agreement… too ‘formed’, it’s the moderator’s job (or group steward) to be looking out for a group mindset – that might often be led by a higher status individual leading the way…
• Closing the gap – so conversely we need to be mindful of the ever present say-do gap – the status grab (as a team member feels the need to ‘rise above’) or the poorly conceived question that leads to unrealistic and unreliable information. We need to ask people about their thoughts, feelings, experiences and mindset in ways that feels safe, trusted and helpful… which takes us into how we set up and knowledge share with people at the start of sessions so they can participate fully… a good set up is everything – as is good ‘stewardship’ of the group – the researcher or moderator role…

This aint easy
So guess what, getting other people’s perspective is deep work, hard work, thoughtful work. And that (for me) is what ‘Qualitative’ is. It’s understanding and insight about other people, leading to ideas that should serve us well.

And guess what – speaking to four or five groups of people, that is actually ‘at scale’. (You’ll be up to around 100 relational permutations…) When done well even a few groups should mean you will be exploring a myriad of ideas, experiences, connections. Profound, real, human, messy, complicated, contradictory, and when done well, really useful.