Interesting I read the article below (see the link) in the last issue of Research News published by the AMSRS. After reading the article I took the opportunity to write a letter to the editor. After the backwards and forwards of the editorial process my article was down the space required and kept most of my concern and opinion in tact - a credit to Kerry the editor.
However, after the editorial advisory board read the article felt it was too denigrating and a public personal attack and name calling and that it demeans us all and will only fuel more furious letter writing. Further, and note it was an opinion piece letter, that all references to individuals should be taken out of the article as well as the denigrating comments.
All that said, I have put the article here for anyone to see and comment. I still stand by my position that it is not, as I personally believe it to be, a denigrating, or a public personal attack rather just a matter of differing opinion and a highlighting of concern over two recent trends.
Letter to the editor:
RE: ‘Does love make the world go around?' see article here http://www.amsrs.com.au/index.cfm?a=detail&id=6632&eid=302
I found the article in the October 2010 edition of Research News titled ‘Does love make the world go around?’ of great interest but unfortunately a bit unnerving because I question the credentials of professionals who work in the area and the portrayal of methods used to measure emotion.
There are multiple comments by Ken Roberts throughout the article, implicating him as a considered expert voice on the subject. At least Ken was accurate to say that the final measure of emotion will not be cognitive, what ever the technology may be.
I am not singling out Ken in particular, as I have great respect for much of what he as accomplished and learned a great deal from him and his senior people early in my market research career. However, there are a couple of trends happening in market research that have really ramped up in the last 18-24 months.
The first of these trends is market research companies and individuals within them are using their academic post nominal titles as an implicit link to an experienced professional expert opinion.
While Forethought may have many staff with doctorates or Phds, are they suitably qualified or experienced to really understand the difference between ‘cognitive drivers’, ‘emotional drivers’, ‘stated emotions’ and ‘emotional activation at the brain level’? From Ken’s example on laddering reliability to anxiety it begs the question.
I think it’s pertinent to add that the new national registration board for psychologists (AHPRA) is finally cracking down on the misuse of the title ‘psychologist. It’s also important to note that there is considerable difference between ‘psychologists’ who are specialised/experienced in one or more of the fields such organisational, educational, sport, clinical, forensic, health or counselling psychology. Misrepresentation of titles is grounds for AHPRA deregistration.
The second trend is the complete misunderstanding by many in the market research profession, and demonstrated in the article, of neuroscience. For example, lumping the measures together as Ken has in the article is like saying cluster analysis, regression analysis, and structural equation modelling have gotten us no closer to understanding predictive models. Galvanic skin response and heart rate are peripheral nervous system measurements whereas, EEG and MRI are central nervous system measurements (and even these two are quite different).
Again, regarding emotion, there is a key difference between articulated emotion and emotional activation in the brain, which are entirely different propositions.
In the end, identifying a specific emotion such as happy, joy, interest, excitement or fear, disgust, anger, sadness is only good for the copywriters who need to potentially wordsmith a printed ad. For any great advertising creative, emotions are conveyed in imagery, sounds, smells against the inability of humans to grasp the complexities of the English language and the breadth of words used to express them. Neuroscience has shown us where to measure for emotional activation and how to capture the intensity of that response and also when it is associated with a motivated approach response (positive emotion) or a motivated withdrawal response (negative emotion) - now that’s what measuring emotion is about.
While there is no panacea for measuring emotions, I strongly disagree that neuroscience and cognitive psychology (i.e. clinical and experimental) is not getting us closer, when indeed it is.
Dr Shane G Moon
Full Member of AMSRS, QPMR
Fully registered psychologist with (in order of receipt seeing how I commented on the need for transparency):
Masters of Business (Strategic Entrepreneurial Management specialisation- major research project: Solving the Entrepreneurial Problem: An Examination of Strategic Choice, Market Orientation and Sales Force Behaviour);
Doctorate in Psychology (Clinical Psychology specialisation- thesis: mood, emotion and personality and their role in psychological well being);
Masters of Psychology (Sport Psychology specialisation- thesis: mood, emotion, perception and the effect on performance);
BA Psychology (Physiological Psychology specialisation- major project: the role of the emotion/mood neurotransmitter serotonin on performance)
