Qualitative market research and product development: representations of food and marketing challenges

A new method for analysing social representations from sentences in natural language is presented. The basic nuclei of the social representation of "eating" are extracted from two corpuses, one coming from a large set of definitions from a dictionary, the other from free associations of 2000 French adult subjects. The method shows that "eating", as a mental model, is the connection of "libido", "intake", "foodstuffs", "meal", "filling up" and "living". Further analysis on free associations on "eating well" yields some pragmatic scripts, showing how consumers assemble the basic nuclei into action rules. Results uncover an archaeology of social knowledge, showing some psychological and cultural bases on which lie the contemporary representations of eating. As important marketing issues in the food business today are concerned with the psychological determinants of food behaviour, our method may bring some new tools for market research, and open new data fields to systematic investigation. A paper from an international symposium 'Enjeux actuels du marketing dans l'alimentation et la restauration' held in Montreal, Canada, May 24th to 27th, 1994

Text mining methods: an answer to Chartier and Meunier

Almost 20 years ago, in a paper introducing the text mining (TM) technique to my fellow statisticians, I expressed the fear that: “it would be unfortunate that this technique, because it is apparently so easy to use, would be abused by incompetent analysts” (Lahlou, 1994, my translation). And therefore I urged expert statisticians to engage in this issue and circumscribe abuses

Peut-on changer les comportements alimentaires?

Le modèle naïf de détermination des comportements alimentaires, dans lequel celui-ci résulte de la volonté consciente du sujet, largement répandu mais inexact, est responsable de l’échec de nombreux régimes alimentaires et de campagnes de santé publique. Les comportements alimentaires sont déterminés à trois niveaux : par des contraintes technicoéconomiques, psychologiques et sociales. La marge de manoeuvre de l’individu, face à un système d’offres et d’habitudes, est limitée. Ce qui ne veut pas dire que le changement est impossible, mais qu’il est illusoire de compter sur la seule volonté du sujet. On liste ici quelques voies réalistes pour autoriser et soutenir les processus de changements. The naïve model of feeding behaviour determination, stating it stems from individual conscious will alone, is widespread but fallacious and roots many a failure in diets and public health campaigns. Feeding behaviour is determined at three levels: technico-economics, psychology, and sociology. Individual capacity of change, facing a whole system of affordances and habits, is limited. Changes are possible, but not when relying upon individual will alone. We list some realistic paths to foster and support change

Social representations and individual representations: what is the difference? And why are individual representations similar?

This paper clarifies a long-standing ambiguity in the notion of social repre-sentations; it provides a clear operational definition of the relation between social representa-tion and individual representation. This definition, grounded in the theory of sets, supports most current empirical investigation methods of social representations. In short, a social rep-resentation of an object in a population is the mathematical set of individual representations the individuals of that population have for this object. The components of the representation are the components used to describe this set, in intension in the mathematical sense of the term (in contrast with a definition in extension). Statistical techniques, as well as content analysis techniques, can construct such components by comparison of individual representa-tions to extract commonalities, and that is what classic investigations on social representations indeed do. We then answer the question: how come that, in a given culture, individuals hold individual representations that are so similar to one another

Why are smartphones disruptive? An empirical study of smartphone use in real-life contexts

Notifications are one of the core functionalities of smartphones. Previous research suggests they can be a major disruption to the professional and private lives of users. This paper presents evidence from a mixed-methods study using first-person wearable video cameras, comprising 200 h of audio-visual first-person, and self-confrontation interview footage with 1130 unique smartphone interactions (N = 37 users), to situate and analyse the disruptiveness of notifications in real-world contexts. We show how smartphone interactions are driven by a complex set of routines and habits users develop over time. We furthermore observe that while the duration of interactions varies, the intervals between interactions remain largely invariant across different activity and location contexts, and for being alone or in the company of others. Importantly, we find that 89% of smartphone interactions are initiated by users, not by notifications. Overall this suggests that the disruptiveness of smartphones is rooted within learned user behaviours, not devices

Performance in collaborative activity: contribution of intersubjectivity theory

Collaboration at work is a key component for activities in complex socio-technical systems. Reviewing the scientific literature showed that collaborative work activity has been well characterized, showing that perspective-taking is a crucial feature, but no study quantifies what makes the performance of collaborative activity. Analyzing performance during work activity inevitably refers to Cognitive Task Analysis paradigm (CTA). Based on digital ethnography and Intersubjectivity Theory, the study was undertaken in a nuclear power plant where cooperative activities were analyzed using a CTA process tracing method: whilst performing their activity, workers wore a miniature camera at the eye-level to record their activity from the first-person perspective and were then involved in a reflexive analysis of the activity. Results led to introduce the concept of “coherent perspective-taking” and demonstrated that it was the main variable explaining collaborative performance for cooperative activities. The related theoretical process is discussed and organizational factors favoring coherent perspective-taking are identified

The Square of PErceived ACtion model (SPEAC model) applied in digital ethnography for work activity analysis: performance and workers’ perception

The SPEAC protocol using first-person perspective ethnography and subsequent replay interviews was applied to analyze work activities at a French nuclear power plant during real operating situations of Operations shift teams (15 situations and 30 participants, about 1950 min. video recordings and 2400 min. audio recordings). Results were compared with those obtained with the standard method applied in the French nuclear fleet (Systemic Approach to Training: SAT). Both SPEAC and SAT methods provided knowledge and know-how necessary to perform work activities. Following each analysis, participants were presented with a questionnaire for assessment of the method. Items addressed efficiency, constraints, extended application to colleagues or other activities. SPEAC method showed a significantly higher level of identification of knowledge and know-how per activity (from 1.9 to 9 times more) than SAT and at a lower cost. The SPEAC method evaluation by participants was positive, with a good consistency of answers. Trainees considered that i) analyzing the subjective film was perceived as a real added value compared to a classic method (without subjective film, ii) the new method induced faster progress iii) the overall perception was positive) iv) the method was worth being deployed to other activities. Bias, limits and perspectives are discussed

O papel da Psicologia na construção dos Objetos

A perspectiva evolucionista das Representações Sociais considera o papel da psicologia na construção dos objetos sociais e a transmissão das representações pela cultura. Nesse contexto, a evolução das representações e objetos se dá por meio de um mecanismo de dupla seleção, na perpetuação dos mais adaptados à realidade social. Apresentamos a Teoria da Instalação, um modelo para pesquisa e intervenção, que considera o mundo como uma instalação, um espaço deliberadamente construído para a reprodução e padronização de comportamentos. A instalação está distribuída em três dimensões: física, psicológica e institucional, sendo necessário intervir simultaneamente nas três para modificar os comportamentos de forma eficaz