“The problem with asking a consumer a question is that they'll give you an answer…”
Tue-S5-002
Presented by: Garmt Dijksterhuis
Olfactory research may occupy a unique position where it is concerned in bridging the gap between theoretical and practical research. Due to the ephemeral quality of its stimuli, the inattentive processing, and its many unconscious behavioural effects, linking olfaction studies in the laboratory to real life applications has always been difficult. The discrepancy between laboratory and real life studies was critically addressed in Köster (2003), wherein the title of this abstract can be found as a quote (p. 364).
In his paper Köster presents several fallacies that may have misled many researchers, in particular when behavioural effects were the subject of investigation. This seems to be true irrespective of it being whole products being studied or isolated odourants/flavourants, and irrespective of the type of application, food, personal care or household products. The fallacies, drawn mainly from psychological theory, address several (misguided) assumptions about consumer behaviour. These resulted in Dijksterhuis, de Wijk and Onwezen (2022) to publish three criteria for the (in)validity of consumer research methods based on consumers 1) reflecting on their own behaviour, 2) being aware of a measurement taking place or 3) knowing the research question.
As the aim of most olfactory and flavour research is to predict when and why consumers will accept a particular product, I’d like to pose that our research is concerned with understanding human behaviour, and hence is part of psychological science. Four basic principles seem to underly the arguments in Köster (2003), viz. that our research questions and ensuing methodology should be: 1) holistic, in that they include as many aspects as possible, 2) embodied, in that they appreciate that the consumer is grounded in a biological system, 3) focusing on consumers’ individual experiences and 4) implicit, in realising that the reasons for behaviour are typically inaccessible to the subjects themselves (Dijksterhuis 2016).
In his paper Köster presents several fallacies that may have misled many researchers, in particular when behavioural effects were the subject of investigation. This seems to be true irrespective of it being whole products being studied or isolated odourants/flavourants, and irrespective of the type of application, food, personal care or household products. The fallacies, drawn mainly from psychological theory, address several (misguided) assumptions about consumer behaviour. These resulted in Dijksterhuis, de Wijk and Onwezen (2022) to publish three criteria for the (in)validity of consumer research methods based on consumers 1) reflecting on their own behaviour, 2) being aware of a measurement taking place or 3) knowing the research question.
As the aim of most olfactory and flavour research is to predict when and why consumers will accept a particular product, I’d like to pose that our research is concerned with understanding human behaviour, and hence is part of psychological science. Four basic principles seem to underly the arguments in Köster (2003), viz. that our research questions and ensuing methodology should be: 1) holistic, in that they include as many aspects as possible, 2) embodied, in that they appreciate that the consumer is grounded in a biological system, 3) focusing on consumers’ individual experiences and 4) implicit, in realising that the reasons for behaviour are typically inaccessible to the subjects themselves (Dijksterhuis 2016).