Abstract:

Traditional economists would have us believe that people are rational, utility-maximizing, cost-minimizing and socially isolated individuals with stable preferences. This view also pervades market research and our practices but is being challenged by a relatively new field in the social sciences, known as Behavioural Economics (BE). This paper provides a new framework for understanding BE and identifies some of the influences on behaviour the research industry regularly overlooks. It shows how BE has been used to develop a new mass ethnographic approach: The Behavioural Detectives.