The question of "Why?" is what drives Ines Imdahl. Why do people smoke, why do they buy cheap meat, why do they vote for a particular party? In an interview with Sarah Nicoli from Wirtschaftspsychologie aktuell, our Managing Director explains how we investigate human behavior at rheingold salon.

You can read the interview in full here. Or you can use the link.

Ms. Imdahl, you are a graduate psychologist and work in psychological market research. What exactly do you investigate?

In psychological market research - or more precisely, in depth psychological market research - we investigate the behavior and experience of people. And in all possible areas. For example: Why do people like certain brands or products? Why do they behave the way they do, for example when shopping, voting or consuming media?

My company "rheingold salon" is commissioned by a wide variety of parties. Our clients are partly companies that produce, manufacture brands, but also political institutions or associations. We not only investigate consumer behavior, but also overall social trends, for example why young people are particularly likely to vote for right-wing parties. Or how social media influences young people, their values, their behavior, even their career choices.

What methods do you use to find answers to these questions?

We believe that in-depth psychological interviews and group discussions are very well suited for this. Above all, because we approach a question very openly and without prejudice. Of course, we form theses that we also check, but the guidelines for our discussions are very open. This enables us to gain many different insights, perspectives, explanations and interpretations.

Our interviews last between two and four hours. Interviews that are shorter than an hour may be qualitative, but not yet depth psychological. It takes a certain amount of time to reconstruct connections and explain behavior. That doesn't work in twenty minutes. In such a short time, the test persons remain on a rational level, i.e. they only describe how they have arranged their world. But then we have not yet reconstructed how and why this attitude came about. We therefore delve deeper and try to get to the bottom of hidden needs and attitudes.

Our interviews are also always theory-led. Otherwise, we would not describe our approach as empirically based or even scientific. We work exclusively with morphological psychology, which is a research focus at the University of Cologne. Morphological psychology is a theoretical approach that deals with the form and development of psychological processes and always considers them holistically. It has certain basic assumptions that we use to evaluate interviews and discussions in a relatively complex way. We attach great importance to this, because depth psychological research is not a gut feeling. It is based on a scientific theory that can be learned.

How extensive is an in-depth psychological study with you?

Our studies consist of around 30 to 60 interviews. For comparison: At the University of Cologne, you could do a doctorate with 30 in-depth psychological interviews during my studies. We are talking here about psychological representativeness instead of statistical representativeness. The aim of our research is to decipher the connections of meaning. Depending on the question, there are various methods that can be used - and the question of meaning and why can best be answered with in-depth psychological interviews or discussions.

How do the questions differ depending on whether the research is depth psychological or statistical?

Let me give you an example: Imagine you want to know how many people in Germany drive an electric car, a gasoline car and a diesel car. Can I answer that in depth psychologically? No. Nor the question of how many people would be willing to drive an electric car. To do this, I would have to research quantitatively and statistically representatively and examine the largest possible heterogeneous sample.

But if I want to explain why some people don't want to drive an electric car, what prejudices and concerns there are, my statistical evaluations won't help me. I can find that out better in in-depth psychological interviews.

You can't say across the board that one method is better than the other. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses; they can complement each other perfectly. So if it's about the how much, we also expand some studies to include quantitative methods; however, our focus is on depth psychology and the question of why.

Some people have habits that are obviously harmful to their health. How could this behavior be explained in depth psychologically?

Let's take smoking as an example. By now, most of us are fully informed and know that smoking is unhealthy. Every cigarette packet warns us of the health consequences. Nevertheless, education alone does not seem to solve the problem; some people continue to buy cigarettes. Why? Because there are deeper motives behind smoking that we need to understand first. We can research this in depth psychologically. Many people then say that smoking calms them down. When smoking, you can burn off certain aggressions, i.e. literally light and burn them. But that's not the only reason. Studies have shown that smoking is a form of so-called "oral gratification". Having something in your mouth and sucking on it can have a calming effect on us. Like babies who have a pacifier in their mouth. That's why smoking is a rather regressive act, because we are fulfilling a very primal need. If you talk to smokers about it, they often agree - even if they may be embarrassed.

You mentioned consumer behavior earlier. How can it be explained in depth psychologically that some people do not shop sustainably, even though sustainability is important to them?

Almost all people are against factory farming, and yet the majority of those surveyed buy cheap meat in discount stores. Why is that? We have found that many people feel that they are being asked to go on a permanent diet when it comes to sustainability. They are never allowed to enjoy anything again, are not allowed to treat themselves and can no longer have a relaxed barbecue with friends. It is the feeling of renunciation that prevents them from buying sustainable alternatives to meat products.

When it comes to sustainability, we therefore work with concepts that are not based on renunciation, but rather reverse the relationship between pleasure and displeasure. In other words, they don't argue with renunciation, but basically say: It's more pleasurable to behave sustainably than not to. This also includes creating incentives for sustainable behavior.

For example, when plastic bags in supermarkets became subject to a charge, there was initially a great outcry. People felt a great reluctance to take their own shopping bag from home. This changed over time: all of a sudden, they felt a great reluctance to spend money on a plastic bag and, accordingly, "pleasure" in packing their own shopping bag. The relationship between pleasure and displeasure was reversed in this case with a financial incentive. This - or something similar - can also motivate other sustainable behaviors.

You said that it is very complex to evaluate in-depth psychological interviews. How many projects can you carry out at the same time?

As a rule, around ten to twelve projects run simultaneously, with the project duration being four to six, sometimes eight weeks. We also carry out our own studies: If a question arises whose results we consider important, including in public, we also research this.

What do you sometimes find challenging?

The biggest challenge for me is to be patient. That is not my strength at all. I am very curious and always want to know everything immediately. But it simply takes time to get to grips with a new topic and learn new skills. I can imagine that some young people feel the same way: you want to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible. But with some topics it takes time to acquire new content and skills, and you need the patience to persevere on the way to your goal.

What do you recommend to students who are interested in your field of work?

I recommend that everyone keep their eyes wide open and deal critically with everything they see. To question: Is what I am perceiving here really the case? Can I explain everything with this point of view? But also: Am I currently doing what really fulfills me? Anyone who critically questions themselves and their environment will find small paths to the goal on the left and right. Psychological market research, for example, is not the classic path that psychology or business psychology graduates take after their studies - even though it is a very interesting and important field. So stay curious, question a lot and dare to break new ground - even if it has not yet been broken at your university.

Thank you for the interview!

We spoke with:

Ines Imdahl is a graduate psychologist, market researcher at rheingold Salon, speaker at congresses, TV psychologist at WDR, book author, and author of columns and articles. Using in-depth psychological and morphological methods, she answers questions about human behavior - for companies, associations and political institutions.