The Question of Why
On conversational questions
My name is Peter Spear.
I am a qualitative researcher, ethnographer, and brand consultant. I’ve spent over 25 years in conversation with people about the products that they invite into their lives.
I want to explain my belief that asking “why?” is counterproductive and wasteful.
As an example, I was recently hired by a rice company to understand why some people pay more for a higher quality rice.
Imagine an interview with someone who regularly pays more for rice, in which I ask the following questions:
“How would you describe the rice you use?”
“What do you love about this rice?”
“What does this rice do really well?”
“If this rice were to go away, what would you miss?”
Now, imagine in a second interview, I ask,
“Why do you buy this brand of rice?”
“Why is this brand of rice worth paying more for?”
Why don’t you buy a more affordable rice.”
The power of qualitative research is its magical ability to generate description. Where quantitative measures, qualitative describes the qualities of the human experience. If
In the first interview, I get responses that are descriptive and conversational. By being open-ended, these questions encourage the person to connect with their own memory in a way that is creative and exploratory.
In the second interview, I get responses that are short and closed. By being direct and closed, they encourage the person to provide a definitive, rational explanation.
Asking “Why?” is counterproductive because it puts people on the defensive, and presumes there is a rational explanation.
And, by forcing people to take a position they are unlikely to change, it shuts the door on untold other explanations that “Why?” simply does not allow.
Only after a full exploration of a topic will I ask a “Why?” question. Even then, I do not take the answer as the truth of the behavior, but as one of many possible truths within our conversation.
Instead of asking “Why?,” I use creative tools like free association and projective techniques to access the thick description of the experience.
And I practice what psychologist Harlene Anderson calls ‘conversational questions’. These are questions asked, “not as a way of generating answers, but as a way of participating in the conversation.” I begin these questions either by repeating something they have said, or with “How” or “What.”
What was it like? What was going on? What does that remind you of?
How would you describe this? How does that feel? How is that different from….?
By focusing on descriptions of the experience, not on producing an answer or an explanation, I am able to preserve the conversation as a safe and open space between us.
And it is this openness that is at the heart of the qualitative interview -a connection and openness that through conversation we will each discover something new, together.
Peter Spear