Ethical dilemmas around the study of human behavior for marketing
Turning challenges into possible paths
I will share some concerns about studying human behavior for marketing purposes; this practice is fraught with ethical dilemmas. I do not intend to share a moral code but food for thought.
Let’s get one thing straight. There is no frictionless life. Friction, discomfort, and everyday challenges are part of our mundane life: but we can use knowledge to reduce those everyday frictions significantly. That’s the purpose of UX research.
How can we stop nagging with empathy?
In anthropological terms, empathy is the cognitive ability to perceive another person’s feelings and needs. It sounds pretty easy, but let’s face it, sometimes we don’t even understand our needs and feelings; how are we supposed to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes only by having goodwill?
Getting rid of my history, race, beliefs, prejudices, experiences, and point of view is impossible. I cannot magically get under the other person’s skin and see the world through his eyes and emotions just like that. In this sense, I’m thinking about the brilliant film Being John Malkovich, which you must watch if you haven’t already. The characters hack into John Malkovich’s mind and get under his skin, but they’re still themselves. In this sense, the filmmaker Spike Jonze states the impossibility of empathy.
Rather than invoking the name of empathy in vain, I suggest checking Richard Grandy’s Principle of Humanity (Grandy, 1973), which states that
Whether our simulation of the other person is successful will depend heavily on the similarity of his belief-and-desire network to our own. It would be desirable to base our simulation on all of the other person’s beliefs and desires, but this is not possible. Thus it is of fundamental importance to make the interrelations between these attitudes as similar as possible to our own. If a translation tells us that the other person’s beliefs and desires are connected in a way that is too bizarre for us to make sense of, then the translation is useless for our purposes. So we have, as a pragmatic constraint on translation, we have the condition that the imputed pattern of relations among beliefs, desires, and the world be as similar to our own. This principle I shall call the principle of humanity.
Please note that Grandy is a psychologist talking about cultural translation (what I think you’re thinking).
The principle of humanity frees us from the need to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. I do not need to become the other (my user, client, friend, or significant other) to respect their way of thinking and behaving. Their existence and behavior need not my approval because they are human beings like me. I don’t need a deep understanding but a deep respect to interact with others.
Why is it essential to make this point? In recent years, I have seen the term empathy misused more than once, understood as “I invited a user to the creative session, so checked, I’m empathic.” But if we invite the user into our creative session as a vase, an ornament to fulfill the requirement and not with the genuine interest of exploring his needs and frictions, I am making the user a fetish.
So please stop nagging about empathy this and empathy that. We don’t need to be empathic; let’s just be respectful of others, no matter how weird they are.
How can we transcend stereotypes?
Let’s be clear. Categories like Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Z, Generation A, and Generation Racoon are based on a single attribute: how old are you? Age shapes our behavior, of course, but it does not define us. Let’s stop categorizing others according to their age: “You’re a millennial, so you can’t be loyal to your bosses; you need to change your job constantly to be free,” or “You’re Gen X, so you’re going to be a very protective parent because you don’t want your children to suffer as you did.” Well, those are very shallow assertions, my friends.
Let’s try to know each other beyond stereotypes. As I said, you don’t need to understand or agree with someone else’s behavior, rituals, beliefs, or way of life.
Although, according to behavioral economics, and more specifically to the work of psychologist Dan Ariely, what we have in common with other humans is that we are predictably irrational, our cultural diversity demands a better willingness to get to know each other. Otherwise, we will come to commonplaces, like the ones you get when you read the horoscope.
How can we ask questions to the right person?
A persona profile is a detailed, fictional representation of a typical person who is part of a specific target. Alan Cooper created this tool. You may have used these profiles or the empathy map designed by Dave Grey. These profiles are commonly used in product development and market research to help companies better understand their customers and develop solutions that meet their needs.
The idea is helpful, but Alan Cooper explains that even though the profile is fictional, it must be filled with accurate data collected through fieldwork. There’s no way to avoid this assignment.
In recent years, I have heard the term “proto-persona” used to describe a hypothetical profile that is not based on actual data but on mere projections. These profiles are often used to develop solutions based on my beliefs, ignorance, and prejudices. Refrain from using proto-personas to design solutions: ask users, observe them, interview them, and explore their lives, world, and interests. Make them co-creators in the study.
A few years ago, I collaborated as a mentor in a study where students developed a solution for a bookshop. When they pitched the proposal, I asked how many users of the bookshop they’d interviewed: none. And none of the students had ever visited the bookshop — how do you expect to solve real problems if you don’t dive into reality?
Also, a few years ago, we had extensive research required by a client who wanted us to improve the signage of a school. The clients were very sure the signage was the problem, but we looked for further information to understand the users’ friction. When we asked the students, it became clear that signage wouldn’t solve hygiene in the toilets and some corridors’ darkness because those were their real frictions.
How can we interact not only with stakeholders but also with the actants of the system?
The sociologist Bruno Latour adapted the semiotic concept of actant to show that humans inhabit systems in which we interact with flora, fauna, and resources without which we could not survive. Therefore, to understand users in context, we need to consider all kingdoms of living beings that support human life and are affected by human life. In this sense, we need to do more than user-centered design; we need to do life-centered design. Unless we have no interest in survival.
How can we use data to understand human behavior holistically?
I know several companies that use big data to make decisions. That’s great, but in the words of anthropologist Tricia Wang, big data needs thick data. If we read the data in a cultural context, we will have a bigger picture of the facts. It’s ironic. Big data gives you a small view.
Speaking about data, whether qualitative or quantitative, data management is a significant dilemma of our time. We must tell people who share information with us how we will use and preserve it. It is also our responsibility to keep that information safe and use it only for announced purposes. We are also responsible for sharing the final results of our research with our interviewees, protecting our sources’ anonymity, and ensuring that people give us their testimonies in an informed way. Data is a precious commodity that we must care for and protect.
How do we understand authorship in this era?
We live in an age where major intellectual and industrial property dilemmas take place in creative work. Someone has an idea, someone else implements it, and someone else optimizes it; everyone is an author to some extent.
When we collaborate in co-authorship with users or when someone else’s work inspires us, we go into murky territory where the game’s rules are unclear. Those rules of the game are becoming even fuzzier with generative Artificial Intelligence.
What should we do? Creative commons offers us a way out. However, when the work is monetized, it is necessary to turn to a copyright expert and know the law to understand the silver linings better; the line between inspiration and appropriation is thin. Co-creation and crediting all participants will provide certainty where the law has gaps.
I have many more concerns, but that’s enough for today. Do you agree with some of them? Which other aspects should we consider when studying human behavior for marketing purposes?
If you need more information and tools to face these challenges better, here are some sources I suggest exploring:
Ariely, D. (2010), Predictably Irrational. Harper Perennial.
Bowles, C. (2018). Future Ethics. Now Next Press.
Cooper, A., Reimann, R., Cronin, D., (2014). About Face. The Essentials of Interaction Design. Wiley.
Field, J., Burke, R., Cooper, C., (Eds) (2013). Aging, Work and Society. SAGE.
Guersenzvaig, A., (2021) The Goods of Design: Professional Ethics for Designers. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Grandy, R., (1973) Reference, Meaning, and Belief. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 70, №14, pp. 439–452
Johnson, S. (2015) Guide to Intellectual Property. The Economist.
Latour, B. (2007) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University Press.
Monteiro, M (2019). Ruined by Design. Mule Design.
Sznel, M. (2020). Tools for environment-centered designers: Actant Mapping Canvas https://uxdesign.cc/tools-for-environment-centered-designers-actant-mapping-canvas-a495df19750e
Wang, T. (2016) Why Big Data Needs Thick Data. https://medium.com/ethnography-matters/why-big-data-needs-thick-data-b4b3e75e3d7
