Phrenology is a pseudo-science that became very popular in the 19th century. It is the idea that the shape, bumps, nodules, and general size of a person’s skull could be used to determine expertise and deficiency of skill, emotion, intellect, and even moral character. It became very popular for celebrities and scientists of their day to have their “head examined” by phrenologists. Even Walt Whitman who was at first openly sceptical about the “science” joined its ranks. If you were a world renowned poet and you had a distinguishing bump on the top left of your head then it would stand to reason that anyone that has a similar bump would also have the proclivity to be a poet. This was the thinking.
Devices were developed to automatically measure people’s skulls and societies were formed to promote the propagation of phrenology and its methods. All the while the crux of their message is that people are the way they are because of their brains and their skulls reflect those brains. Phrenology forgets about culture, context, philosophy, and religion. It oversimplifies to the point of absurdity. Do we do the same in MR?
I have been struck lately with how much stock we put in the outward actions and statements of people. As researchers we tend to gather and analyse these data points because … we have them. The other data is harder to gather because it is inherently less tangible. The tangibility of something does not make it any less relevant. H.L. Mencken, an early 20th century American satirist, said it best, “complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.” As researchers are we looking for simple, easy to understand (and communicate), but finding wrong answers?
People are complicated. Why should the solutions/methodologies to understanding them be simple?
What are some ways to look beyond the bumps and nodes? Stay tuned… for next month’s post?
What do you think? Am I right, off base, or just plain wrong?
Comment away!
Kyle Nel is Head of International and Multicultural Research for Lowe’s Home Improvement in USA
4 comments
[…] MR PhrenologyFeb 28, 2012 … Phrenology is a pseudo-science that became very popular in the 19th century. It is the … Falsifiability – claims must be Able to be disproven. […]
Kyle, totally agree.
As a social psychologist and neuropsychologist I have been concerned for years (from mid 80s)
with neurofeedback, biofeedback and neuromarketing, well the last later, of course!
To be fair Gall (inventor of phrenology) was not completely wrong, modern anthropologists try to infer the mental capacity of the precursors of Homo sapiens through the fingerprints left on the inner wall of the skull from the cerebral arteries!
What is wrong, but so exciting, is to transfer the results of a search field to another.
Naively transfer parameters for the assessment of attention measured with EEG from simple stimuli on a small sample to complex stimuli on a population is wrong, but easy.
In our day, we adore the word “science”
Using the word “science” means -scientific standards must be applied – or use of the term is dishonest.
Current scientific standards include:
– Double-blind, peer-reviewed studies
– Falsifiability – claims must be Able to be disproven.
Can anything in neuromarketing claim to meet these criteria?
But we know the importance of the evaluation of emotions, we know how difficult it is to remember
them accurately, and even find the words to describe them.
The interactions with new media are difficult to assess, too fast to describe.
The new face coding and eye tracking technology could be of help.
Like everybody else, market researchers have their own cognitive biases and difficult to accept
things that do not know, although these can get interesting and useful information.
As you rightly said, people and even more groups of people and societies are complex and difficult
subject to study and we need all the valid approaches and all available tools.
Then what may be a solution?
share knowledge, share tools, co-create solutions/methodologies!
People are complicated. No one is good enough to be able to understand them (us) alone.
We’re working on building an online work environment that allows researchers to access the
technologies they deem necessary, without any major investment, but above all an environment where share our ideas, our results, our methods.
Only if a result is shared and controlled has a scientific value.
Imagine an open platform where you can choose to use online questionnaires, remote eyetracking to control the perception of images and analyze the emotional impact of different elements through the face coding, analyzing rhetorical tropes or study the interactivity
attributes for expression-oriented interaction design.
An open platform where researchers can also add their own experiences, models and tecniques.
You have found useful semiotic analysis of a video with the help of eyetracking? Connected to the platform, integrate and share your model, if others use it you receive something back,
and your model will finally have a practical test and a value.
We wish that through our platform even small, innovative research firm could have access to the most innovative technologies.
Would this be a good idea?
Comment away! Please
Kyle completely agree with you. I gave a paper at a research conference in London last week urging for ‘outside in’ thinking; too often researchers adopt an ‘inside out’ approach! We are on exactly the same page on this one!
Thanks Andrew- I am curious what solutions have you found to get to “outside in” thinking?