Group Psychology and Consumer Panels Part 1

Recently we posted an article about group psychology and its effect on people's behavior. The reason we pointed out this article was to show that surveys may be more useful than many meetings when it comes to brainstorming or covering ideas, because many people change their behaviors when they're in a group setting. The money quote from the article is here: When we're in a group other people have an incredibly powerful effect on us.

Groups can kill our creativity, inspire us to work harder, allow us to slack off, skew our decision-making and make us clam up. The power of groups on the ability to brainstorm or have stimulating discussion is strong. People tend to follow other people's ideas, hide their own thoughts, agree with things because someone else said them, and often do not challenge the thoughts of others.

Consumer panels are one of the most common ways to receive qualitative data and ideas. Often panels are used to come up with potential thoughts that can later be used in quantitative research, but sometimes panels are used as the sole source of ideas that a company uses to make decisions. Regardless of its use, one has to wonder how much benefit panels really have if group psychology plays a role in the decision making process.

For example, if you get a great idea from a panel, is it because the panel led discussion led your company to finding a great idea? Or is it because one or two intelligent, creative individuals within the panel came up with an idea themselves and everyone agreed because of group psychology. Further, if you didn't come up with a good idea, is it because the panel was unhelpful? Or is it because the creativity of the staff was stifled? It can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference, since there may not be a creative thinker in the group.

Panels are not un-useful, certainly, because companies have been using them for years with success, especially if they turn their findings into quantitative research next (so that they can ensure the decisions coming from the panel are useful). But panels still do create a problem because of the group psychology. The question, then, is whether or not there is a better way to make use of a panel.

One idea will be discussed in the next article.