Beyond Rational vs Emotional: Understanding the True Complexity of Consumer Decision Making

I know I am not the only one, but it still irks me to read articles and posts that argue the benefits of one type of research over another. They are all important to our understanding and decision making, they each add a different, but equally valuable, perspective to our understanding of consumers.

It is, however, the Rational vs Emotional argument that frustrates me the most. Every decision that consumers make has components of both. We humans are both rational and emotional beings and attempts to separate the two are in danger of over-simplifying consumer decision making and thus losing any relevance when trying to understand consumer behaviour.

This rational vs emotional argument is not new, philosophers such as Plato, Budda, Freud have, over the centuries, had something to say about it. However most recent debate has tended to centre around Kahneman’s thought in Thinking Fast and Slow (2011). System 1 and System 2 thinking.

To typify System 1 as purely emotional and System 2 as rational is to mis-understand Kahneman, oversimplifying what he was saying and exacerbating the emotional vs rational debate in a very unproductive way.

Kahneman described System 1 Thinking as:

“operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.”

This is our ability to freewheel through large parts of our lives making the vast majority of our decisions with minimal effort or thought. But it is not without rational or logic.

Most of us, if we see a large object heading straight for our heads are likely to duck or move out of the way without thinking about it – and often even before we are consciously aware we have even seen it. A classic System 1 response.

However if you’re a professional footballer you may rise to meet the object and head it towards the goal – this has to be an instinctive System 1 reaction as there will not be enough time to calculate the speed and angles.

The difference between the two is their current situation, their current intention and their past experiences (practice and training).

While most of our consumers may not have the drilled experience and practice of a footballer, they will have a lifetime of experience and practice behind them and their current situation and intention will have a significant influence upon their decision making.

I often talk about System 1 decisions as “intuitive decisions” based upon an assimilation of the individuals experience and knowledge applied within the context of their current situation and requirements. Instant, yes, but also a complex synthesis of attitudes and experience, prejudice and knowledge.

If you are to understand this in the context of your category and brand a simple rational vs emotional, or even a rational plus emotional, approach will only get you so far.

It is, however, possible to track consumers’ experiences and the evolution of their attitudes, to understand their prejudices and the knowledge that they have acquired. It is interesting from a psychological viewpoint to do this for individual consumers, but much more useful and valuable when you identify overall trends in a cohort or population as a whole.

When you build an understanding of the scaffolding upon which consumers instant System 1 decisions are made you also build an awareness of the subtle ways in which you can influence these decisions through product and communications developments that resonate with consumers’ past experiences, their prejudges and current desires.

Sometimes quite small, sometimes more significant, product and communications changes that nudge those instant decisions in your favour.

If your research is separating rational and emotional decision making, you need to rethink. Consumers’ decisions from the simplest – choosing a chocolate bar – to the most significant – buying a home – are always a combination of rational and emotional. Understanding the genesis of these and how they coalesce at the critical point is the key to making better decisions for your brand and growing market share.

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Chris Lukehurst is a Consumer Psychologist and a Director at The Marketing Clinic:

Providing Clarity on the Psychological relationships between consumers and brands