Herring 1200

The fool-proof way to get honest responses

Hugh Carling

Hugh Carling

Liveminds

Co-founder of Liveminds. I love to bring like-minded people together. Whether that's growing businesses, running online communities, staging events or captaining my village cricket team, nothing makes me happier than seeing people with a shared passion, coming together and making the most of it.

Recently, I was at dinner party and someone mentioned the Future Islands video that went viral last month. The video shows front man, Sam Herring, dancing like a mad man on David Letterman. The general reaction at the dinner table was laughter and the group unequivocally agreed that Herring was a corny buffoon.

Personally, I find that kind of passion refreshing. However, rather than state my opinion, I simply laughed with the rest of the group and went back to my steak & ale pie.

Most of us, at one point or another, have been in a situation where others have influenced our opinions. Imagine you were in a group where 9 out of 10 people didn’t share your point of view on a subject. Would you start doubting yourself? Or would you stand your ground?

Group effect

Studies show that in an unfamiliar situation, we are likely to shape our behaviour to match that of others. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense — it’s safer to stay with the herd (we’ve all watched the Life series, we know what happens to the water buffalo). But what happens when the herd is a group of participants in an online research study? How do you control the ‘group effect’?

Studies of behaviour

The issue of bias in qualitative research is an important one. Failing to get everyone’s true thoughts means lost opportunities for valuable insight. A study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology found that “when evaluating a product, consumers were more likely to incorporate the opinions of others through the use of social proof when their own experiences with the product were ambiguous, leaving uncertainty as to the correct conclusion that they should make.”

Another study at Cornell found that “information cascades occur when late responders sometimes go along with the decisions of early responders, not just because the late responders think the early responders are right, but also because they perceive their reputation will be damaged if they dissent from the early responders.”

It’s normal human behaviour. But it’s this type of behaviour moderators must control if they are to secure honest feedback and gather great insights that will help their clients make informed business decisions.

The Unbiased feature

That’s why we created the unbiased feature, which ensures participants have posted their response before they can see/comment on the replies of other participants during group tasks. Free of bias, participants are more likely to voice their honest opinions and share information that they might otherwise keep to themselves.

There are plenty of variables to contend with in the world of online research, but by using the unbiased feature, you can be certain that group bias isn’t one of them. Who knows? You might even discover that a few people actually do like Sam Herring’s eccentric stage antics.

Please do get in touch if you have any questions or would like to find out more about our simple, flexible and truly mobile qualitative research platform.


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