Emotions
Beyond anxiety and ‘political correctness’: How experimental design trumps ‘gaming it’ and gets more deeply into the mind
July 2009
One of the continuing issues in consumer and public opinion research is the respondent’s desire to please the interviewer or be perceived as being ‘PC’ (politically correct). Covert social pressure may well lead to erroneous information, as the interviewee weighs the answer to be given in light of truth, expected interviewer reaction, and the interviewee’s own ideals. How, then, does truth get measured, especially when measuring responses for emotionally tinged topics?
In God we trust: What the God phrase does to relieve anxiety
August 2009
Thus far, measurement barriers inhibited researchers from studying the link between the god concept or image, a special case of spirituality, and anxiety. This study examined the impact of spirituality, mainly of God phrases, as an ameliorator of anxiety.
Extending Psychophysics Methods to Evaluating Potential Social Anxiety Factors
September 2009
The paper addresses the question of how to create a database of the citizen’s mind about anxiety-provoking situations in the face of terrorism. The approach is grounded in a combination of experimental design, psychophysics (a branch of psychology), and consumer research. The theoretical foundation is illustrated with a set of 15 empirical studies using conjoint analysis in order to understand how consumers respond to anxiety-provoking situations. The approach identifies the mindset towards terrorism at the individual respondent level.