Abstract:

Consciously or unconsciously, we systematically distort what we actually want to understand: the consumer. We often implicitly assume rational behaviour, neglect interdependencies and over-generalize from isolated findings. Most of all, we often forget or are not able to question the underlying psychological model of consumer behaviour. This paper outlines the pitfalls in the different project stages, from the client briefing to the final paper of results. Based on this analysis, a framework is developed to deduce the theoretical and methodological implications requiring focus to significantly increase the validity of our predictions.