Making sense of science

“The Golden Age of Bull***t” is how advertising guru Bob Hoffman described contemporary marketing – and he’s probably not wrong.

In a review of nine leading marketing textbooks, Armstrong and Schultz found 566 instructions for good marketing, but a whopping zero were supported by evidence. Unsurprisingly, an industry survey of CEOs found that 70% had lost trust in marketers, and 69% believed marketers had failed to prove their strategies.

Often, there appears to be a deficit of scientific thinking in the commercial world.

As a part-time lecturer and peer-reviewed author, with 10 years’ experience applying behavioural science to business challenges, here are my four guiding principles for using academic research principles in a commercial setting.

1. Be Data-Driven

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, most people are imprisoned in a cave, watching the shadows cast by puppets against a fire. The enlightened, meanwhile, have escaped the cave and can see the real world for what it is.

Often, in business and beyond, we also ‘jump at shadows’ because of a lack of wisdom or insight. Psychological research is replete with examples of people spotting patterns where they do not exist; this principle is known as pareidolia, and is manifest in, for example, seeing a face in the moon or Jesus in a toasted cheese sandwich.

Scientists are similarly biased in their appraisal of information. One study found that psychologists judged a study more harshly when it was found to confirm, rather than disconfirm, hypotheses from astrology, even though the methodology and analyses were identical.

To mitigate our own cognitive biases and avoid ‘jumping at shadows’, it is crucial to be objective and data-driven. Businesses ought to adopt the scientific method: test hypotheses with robust, empirical research, and draw conclusions which produce further hypotheses to test.

As French philosopher August Comte noted:

“All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon’s time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts.”

2. Never Settle

To paraphrase Charles Darwin, it is not the strongest or smartest of the species that survives, but that which is most adaptable to change. That is to say that business people ought never to rest on their laurels when it comes to insight, but instead always strive for improvement.

The phrase ‘scientific consensus’ is a misnomer: inherent in science is the testing and refining of shared knowledge and assumptions, in a never-ending quest for divine truth. Remember that the scientific consensus was once that the earth was the centre of the universe, or that bloodletting was a healthy medical practice.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins recounted a tale from his student days, when a professor had his theory proved wrong in front of the class. The professor shook the challenger’s hand, and the class clapped their hands raw. This iterative search for truth is the bedrock of science; businesses will likewise benefit from always being on their toes and evaluating their assumptions.

3. Trust No One

In the Asche Experiment, a participant was brought into a room to answer quiz questions out loud along with several other participants – who in reality were stooges trained to give the wrong answers. In most cases, the target conformed with the group and gave answers that were obviously wrong.

This experiment illustrates the importance of taking care when trusting information when it comes from other people.

This is particularly germane when it comes to market research. For example, ad guru Rory Sutherland discussed at TED how focus group participants said “Diamond” Shreddies were more appealing and better tasting. Innovative techniques can be used to bypass these biases in research – for instance, a reaction time-based methodology was able to predict the future voting behaviour of voters who explicitly said they were undecided at the time of polling.

4. Image is Everything

It is a sad fact that information must be presented the right way if it is to be believed and acted upon – even in the world of science. It is well established, for example, that studies with positive results are more likely to be published, as are those with male authors’ names. Similarly, a poor study is rated more favourably by psychologist reviewers if it has neuroscience ‘trimmings’ such as images of brain scans.

Business people need to be persuasive to get things done. While it is crucial to be scientific, it is also important to be pragmatic in how these results are presented to stakeholders, lest valuable insights fall by the wayside.

Ultimately, we are all ‘cognitive misers’ with limited brainpower for reviewing information and making decisions – a potentially lethal principle when information-based assumptions drive commercial results (or lack thereof). Businesses can get strong, repeatable outcomes by implementing the academic principle of the continual and critical evaluation of people, information and application.