Qualitative research methods in consumer psychology paul m w hackett,routledge, 2016 scan

Qualitative Research Methods in Consumer Psychology This volume covers theoretical, applied and research approaches to the study of ethnography in consumer research and organizational ch

Qualitative Research Methods

in Consumer Psychology

This volume covers theoretical, applied and research approaches to the study of ethnography in consumer research and organizational change No other volume to date is as broad and current in scope and detail.

—Timothy Malefyt, Fordham University, USA

While consumer research is founded on traditional quantitative approaches, the insight produced through qualitative research methods within consumer settings has not gone unnoticed The culturally situated consumer, who is

in intimate dialogue with his or her physical, virtual, and social ings, has become integral to understanding the psychology behind con-sumer choices This volume presents readers with theoretical and applied approaches to using qualitative research methods in ethnographic studies looking at consumer behavior It brings together an international group of leading scholars in the field of consumer research, with educational and professional backgrounds in marketing, advertising, business, education, therapy, and health Researchers, teaching faculty, and students in the field

surround-of consumer and social psychology will benefit from the applied examples

of qualitative and ethnographic consumer research this volume presents

Paul M.W Hackett is a Professor of Ethnography and Consumer Behavior

at Emerson College, United States and a visiting academic in the phy department at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom His books

philoso-include Facet Theory and the Mapping Sentence: Evolving Philosophy, Use

and Application, Fine Art and Perceptual Neuroscience: Field of Vision and the Painted Grid, and Conservation and the Consumer: Understand- ing Environmental Concern His research and writing has appeared in Psy- chometrika; International Review of Retail, Distribution, and Consumer Research; Environment and Behavior; the British Journal of Management; Multivariate Behavior Research; and other prestigious journals He is a

Chartered Psychologist in the United Kingdom

Ethnography and Culture

Edited by Paul M.W Hackett

Qualitative Research Methods

in Consumer Psychology

Ethnography and Culture

Edited by

Paul M.W Hackett

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Introduction: What Is Consumer Ethnography: The ‘Big-E’

and ‘Little-e’ in Consumer Research? xi

PAUL M.W HACKETT AND ROXANA MAIORESCU

1 Integrating Ethnographic Consumer Research Using Facet

PAUL M.W HACKETT

2 Ethics in Qualitative Consumer Research 16

GRANT C AGUIRRE AND MICHAEL R HYMAN

3 Recruitment and Sampling in Consumer Research 33

KATHRYN ROULSTON AND BRIANA MARTINEZ

PAUL M W HACKETT AND JESSICA B SCHWARZENBACH

5 Inference and Hypothesis in Ethnographic Studies 66

JAMES L EVERETT AND KIM JOHNSTON

6 Ethnography 1: Revisioning Teenage Pregnancy Using

Participant Observation: Life in the Happy Hut 79

GABRIELLE BRAND AND PAUL MORRISON

7 Ethnography 2: Field Observations, Questionnaires,

and Focus Group Interviews at a Water Park 91

PAUL M.W HACKETT AND ERIN KOVAL

8 Autoethnography in Consumer Research 105

CHRIS HACKLEY

9 Focus Group Interviews 118

13 Action Research: The Bindjareb Yorgas Health Program 173

CAROLINE NILSON, PAUL MORRISON, AND CATHY FETHERSTON

14 Ethnographic Research into the Consumer Environment:

The Environment of Luxury Goods as a Space to Fight For 192

ANTONELLA FABRI AND PAUL M.W HACKETT

15 Researching Virtual and Real-World Possessions, Artifacts,

RUSSELL BELK

16 Visual and Sensory Ethnography 219

SARAH PINK, KERSTIN LEDER-MACKLEY, AND PAUL M.W HACKETT

17 Ethnography: Textual Methodology 230

ANTHONY LOWRIE

18 Netnography: Possibilities and Resourcefulness 252

CECILIA LEWIS KAUSEL AND PAUL M.W HACKETT

19 Neuroscience Research Approaches: Developing

an Ethnography of Non-Conscious Consumer Behaviour 262

PETER STEIDL AND STEPHEN J GENCO

20 Software in Consumer Ethnography 277

ethnogra-in my teachethnogra-ing with the excellent specialized books whilst assistethnogra-ing students

to blend these with my lectures: a far from ideal situation, which I decided

to remedy I considered writing a textbook but soon decided a collection

of individual chapters written by acknowledged authorities and innovators would be more engaging when chapters contained methodological wisdom and innovation from writers at the forefront of a chapter’s specific area This has not always been a simple project, as the 28 authors in this book come from across the globe, working within both higher education and industry, as employees and as self-employed researchers and practitioners Unifying the collection and keeping editing to a minimum whilst allowing each author’s unique voice to emerge has been a challenge I selected the focus and scope of the chapters to provide understanding of the broad area

of consumer ethnography and qualitative consumer research I told authors that I wished to produce a comprehensive survey of consumer ethnography for graduate and undergraduate students: The content offered by authors was their response to this request Readers may identify subject areas that

I have not included in this book: indeed, I can do this myself Furthermore, readers may have opinions about the relative worth of each chapter’s con-tent However, this is a personal choice of content that I believe and hope provides a comprehensive overview of research that falls under the umbrella

of consumer ethnography

St George, Bermuda, December 2014

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Introduction: What Is Consumer

Ethnography: The ‘Big-E’ and

‘Little-e’ in Consumer Research?

Research is all about asking questions, from the ‘hard-nosed’ more tured research of the physical sciences through to the more reflexive research carried out in many of the social sciences The advent of the Inter-net, Google, and other search engines has made us all applied researchers on

struc-a dstruc-aily bstruc-asis to struc-a previously unhestruc-ard of extent The Internet hstruc-as opened up

a vast array of ways in which we, as consumers, are able to make enquiries into many aspects of consumer products and services An obvious way that

we all may conduct consumer research is by reading feedback comments from other customers who have purchased and used a product in which we are interested Over the preceding two decades, many research terms and approaches have thus come to be used widely in everyday life The notion of

‘search key words’ was previously restricted to those who had spent many months in an academic library conducting background research for their research degree Research was a specialized activity with a dedicated techni-cal vocabulary Now, many people use the Boolean search, if not the phrase itself, in their everyday activities Consumer opinion surveys have become a ubiquitous aspect of contemporary life and a vital component of many tele-vision programs In-depth interviews are demanded of our politicians when they are attempting to garner our votes and, conversely, political parties try-ing to tailor their manifestos and other communications to attract our votes use focus groups to fine-tune their communications However, one form of behavioural research has received less media attention and, consequently, may be less well known: ethnography

The majority of people who have chosen to read this book have probably done so because they are familiar with the use of ethnography and qualita-tive research to help develop understanding of consumers However, you are

a small and, dare I say, elite group When I am at a party and I am asked what I teach, my reply of ‘ethnography’, whether I include the epithet of consumer or not, is usually received with raised eyebrows and a nod or two Ethnography is one of those words that we tend to think we know what

it means until we are put on the spot and we have to provide an explicit definition I have found over several years of teaching consumer ethnogra-phy that this is frequently the case with students who often take the course

because it sounds interesting or academic Indeed, I start most of my classes

in ethnography by asking my fresh student cohort to tell me what they think ethnography is Ethnography, they often tell me, sounds as if it is concerned with something to do with ethnic aspects of society or perhaps ethics in a social setting, both of which they say sound interesting, academic, and dif-ferent from many of their other classes Rather than disabusing them of the basis for their potential interest, I bolster their enthusiasm by letting them

in on the secret of what ethnography actually is and, more importantly for them, what they will be studying during the coming months

During my introduction to my ethnography classes, I have found myself using the terms, ‘the big-E’ and ‘little-e’ in ethnography’ Having introduced these concepts, I then use them throughout the lecture series as different research processes are employed to investigate consumers In this context

I use the concepts of ‘big-E’ and ‘little-e’ to describe the research dures that constitute the entire course Loosely conceived, big-E consumer ethnography is what is traditionally understood as researcher-immersed, long-term participant observation This is the approach of traditional anthropology where the researcher joins a group he or she wishes to study and spends a protracted period of time as a community member Examples

proce-of this form proce-of research from anthropology are innumerable and include work by seminal anthropological researchers and writers, as well as more contemporary examples Questions may be asked in consumer research that yield qualitative responses that may attempt, for example, to capture the reasons a consumer behaves in a given manner These forms of enquiry are searching for rich consumer insight of the sort provided by big-E ethnog-raphy However, when designing consumer ethnography, time is perhaps at more of a premium than within academic anthropology and, consequently, consumer ethnography is typically briefer In this book I therefore define

‘little-e ethnography’ to be qualitative research of all sorts that attempts

to gather nonnumerical, rich consumer insight Approaches illustrative of such approaches to designing and collecting consumer behavioural data include: projective techniques; interview approaches, including focus group and in-depth interviews; narrative techniques and other forms of analysis of textual data; a variety of online approaches that range from simple searches

of websites through to online participant observation; and other tional approaches The preceding paragraphs describe the general thematic structure of this book What follows is an outline of each chapter’s content

observa-Chapter Synopses

In the first chapter I note that researchers conducting consumer ethnographic research have choices regarding how they structure and integrate qualitative research Researchers may encounter difficulties: uniting different qualita-tive approaches within a single study; clearly understand the results from studies employing multiple and varied qualitative research approaches; etc

This chapter proposes the qualitative mapping sentence (Hackett, 1995,

2013, 2014) to resolve these and other difficulties

In chapter 2, Michael Hyman and Grant Aguirre provide an account

of ethics in relation to qualitative consumer research They consider eral philosophical approaches to ethics; for example, Aristotle’s Nichoma-chean Ethics and Eudemain Ethics, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and

sev-a vsev-ariety of other ethicsev-al codes thsev-at hsev-ave been developed The sev-authors sider the strengths and weaknesses of all these approaches whilst keeping

con-in mcon-ind the application of ethics to consumer ethnography In conclusion, they propose IRAC (issue, rule, application, and conclusion) as a method-ological template In chapter 3, Kathy Roulston and Briana Martinez evalu-ate recruitment and sampling procedures that are specifically pertinent to ethnography and qualitative research They draw from the epistemological positions of objectivism, constructivism, and subjectivism and give exam-ples for recruitment and sampling across multiple disciplines In chapter 4, Jessica Schwarzenbach and I address a much-neglected component of the ethnographic research process when we ruminate upon what can go wrong

in ethnographic research Examples are provided of things that have gone wrong in our own and others’ qualitative research projects; and we pres-ent a review of some of these errors and how researchers can be aware of and perhaps avoid these In chapter 5, James Everett and Kim Johnston consider the starting point of ethnographic research and the challenges and opportunities of employing hypotheses in this type of research and whether hypotheses may offer a way of solving some of the difficulties regarding knowledge claims

There then follow two chapters, each of which address a separate use of

‘big-E’ ethnography In chapter 6, Gabby Brand and Paul Morrison present

a research study that involved participant observations and interviews to study the Happy Hut, a community house in Australia that assists pregnant adolescents in their transition to motherhood In chapter 7, Erin Koval and

I offer details of a consumer research study that looked at a water park constructed from old quarrying works, and the authors detail the manner

in which observation and focus groups were used together to facilitate sumer understanding In chapter 8, Chris Hackley looks at autoethnography,

con-a vcon-aricon-ation of the ethnogrcon-aphic con-approcon-ach thcon-at revolves con-around the resecon-arch-er’s reflexivity and, consequently, makes the researcher the subject of his

research-or her own study Chris Hackley also introduces the academic politics and managerial perspectives vis-à-vis the use of autoethnography in consumer research, discusses the contributions of autoethnographic research to mar-keting, and makes recommendations on how to write an autoethnography.Chapter 9 deals with the widely used consumer research approach of the focus group interview and tackles the importance of combining this meth-odology with ethnography Deborah Potts, an expert in mixed-research techniques, provides insight and case studies from her own experiences In chapter 10, Steven Kalter reviews projective techniques, specific exercises

used during focus groups, whose purpose is to bring to light the pants’ deep feelings and emotions He describes the mechanisms behind pro-jective techniques and provides details on four types of exercises: text-based, verbal-based, visual-based, and image-based In-depth interviews are another well-known research technique used extensively within multitudinous forms

partici-of research, including qualitative consumer inquiries Chapter 11 (Carole Schmidt) and chapter 12 (Bonita M Kolb) provide illustrations of in-depth interviews (IDIs) Specifically, Schmidt provides insight into the structure, design, and analysis of IDIs whilst Kolb gives a theoretical overview, which includes the researcher/subject relationship and the IDI as a research pro-cess In chapter 13, readers will find a case study on the Bindjareb Yorgas Health program, offered as an illustration of qualitative research whose aim

is not only to collect data but also to build bridges between participants and researchers despite cultural differences Caroline Nilson, Paul Morri-son, and Cathy Fetherston provide an example of research that involved indigenous and nonindigenous Australians In chapter 14, Antonella Fabri and I describe an approach and insight for understanding the complexity of environmental influences upon consumer behaviour We provide the specific example of luxury consumer goods and evaluate the location related retail and purchase dynamics

To this point all of the research presented has been primary research (research that gathers and analyzes data for an ongoing project) Chapter 15 departs from this when Russell Belk reviews the use of artifacts and archi-val research within the consumer setting The author discusses the blurred boundaries between the virtual and the real world in terms of consumer behavior and gives insight into conducting ethnographic studies using You-Tube, online games, virtual worlds, social media, and online communities In chapter 16, we return to primary data as Sarah Pink, Kerstin Leder-Mackley, and I review how visual and sensory material may be used to create an eth-nography and offer concrete examples from the first two authors’ research The chapter stresses the use of video tours in visual ethnography

Narrative analysis and textual approaches are Anthony Lowrie’s subject matter in chapter 17 He discusses theoretical and practical approaches to qualitative research and focuses on the ontological and epistemological per-spectives upon text analysis Ever more of our contemporary commercial world exists online along with or replacing other more conventional com-mercial domains Moreover, community life has taken a drastic move over the last 10 years to the same medium Therefore, in chapter 18, Cecilia Lewis Kausel and I present a timely consideration of how ethnographies may be conducted online through netnography

The final three chapters move our focus slightly from qualitative sumer research, viewed in isolation, to mixed methods, multimethods, and alternate approaches to the conception of such research In chapter 19, Peter Steidl and Stephen J Genco offer their thoughts on neuroscientific consumer research, propose a neuroscience approach to ethnography, and

con-expose the challenges of data interpretation when research is conducted via advanced neuroscience methods Software has become commonplace

in nearly all forms of research Consequently, in chapter 20, Eli Lieber uses the case study of consumers’ selection of hotels in Las Vegas to illustrate how software increases efficiency in the analysis of consumer behaviour Finally, in chapter 21, Gordon Foxall expands our purview by introduc-ing the concept of heterophenomenology, a research method used to gain insight into the contents of consciousness, as this relates to the study of consumer behaviour

Paul M.W Hackett and Roxana Maiorescu

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1 Integrating Ethnographic

Consumer Research

Using Facet Theory and

the Mapping Sentence

Paul M.W Hackett

INTRODUCTION

In chapter 3 of this volume, Jessica Schwarzenbach and I provide tions of some potential pitfalls and difficulties associated with the successful completion of qualitative research In many of the other chapters in this book, claims are made that structuring and integrating qualitative research studies may be equivocal Specifically, researchers may experience quan-daries when attempting to: bring together different qualitative approaches within a single study, compare studies that employ different research approaches, and unify interpretations of findings from studies using mul-tiple and varied qualitative research approaches In this chapter, I will offer

illustra-an approach to the amalgamation of the design illustra-and integration of results that arise from qualitative consumer research; namely, the mapping sen-tence (Hackett, 1995, 2013, 2014) The mapping sentence exploits the com-monalities that exist between individuals’ perceptions and understandings

of events To explain the structure of the essay that follows, I initially make the following propositions: a template that enables us to clearly understand human behaviour potentially offers a framework for research into human behaviour; a template must incorporate commonalities in human behaviour

to transcend purely individualistic accounts of behaviour; and a template may best be understood as metaphorical

FACETS, METAPHORS, AND PERCEPTION

In reading this book, you may be excused of thinking that each topic sented is discrete in nature; indeed, each topic is offered in a separate chap-ter, further reinforcing this belief If the chapters are not to be understood as isolated, then how should these be arranged? I have ordered chapters along

pre-an approximate chronology of a research project However, there are other arrangements that may be imposed upon the chapters For instance, the top-

ical contents of this book may be divided within five categories: planning,

investigating direct action, investigating preverbal articulation, text-based

analyses, understanding behavioural antecedents and outcomes This

orga-nization of content presents topics under a category heading that is not mutually exclusive of other within category topics (there is some potential overlap) As category headings are not mutually exclusive, within category topics cannot be chosen to exclusively represent their category: indeed, some other part-to-whole (item-to-category) relationship exists Further-more, the selection of categories may be somewhat mercurial with other researchers choosing a different structure However, metaphors, I assert, are

by their very nature categories that are relatively consistent between viduals from a similar culture Moreover, we seem to like metaphors and use them to explain things that are at the edge of our understanding via more readily comprehendible metaphorical examples Metaphors are also useful in providing colour and vibrancy to more familiar situations The use

indi-of metaphors can be seen in many areas indi-of psychological activity; but in this chapter, I will be considering metaphors within the context of understand-ing how we conceive of qualitative research into consumer behaviour This may not immediately appear to be an area that is in need of metaphorical explanations, but in the next few paragraphs I will claim, and illustrate, why

I believe this is not the case

Paul Churchland uses the metaphor of a camera to explain his ing about the biological brain as “Plato’s camera” (Churchland, 2013) in which he also introduces the Map-Indexing Theory of Perception In this essay, I conceive understandings of research into consumer behaviour1 as being a process of semantic perception that is built upon our apprehension and understanding of the world we encounter which we then instantiate as enquiry In trying to understand perceptions as being something more than just idiographic experiences, we are faced with the problem of how to mean-ingfully correspond any form of interpersonal indexing of, “ the concepts

think-of one person’s conceptual framework onto the concepts think-of another’s, in such

a fashion as to preserve sense, meaning or semantic identity across pairings effected by such a mapping” (Churchland, 2007, p 126) We face similar difficulties within a qualitative research project when attempting to mean-ingfully correspond one person’s reported universe of experience with that

of another’s However, by mapping metaphors we may speak of the cultural regularities in understandings between people and provide a possibly analo-gous correspondence between different individuals’ semantic representations

To continue with perception, it is appropriate to think of our standing of veridical perceptions as comprising a sensation and its seman-tic interpretation based upon what we have previously learnt about other, perhaps similar, sensations I could at this point also speak about illusions, hallucinations, fictitious events, and other nonveridical perceptions and understandings as these too may be formed of some form of sensation and interpretation However, in this short essay I take the position clearly set out

under-by Searle (2015) in explaining perception as encompassing both veridical and hallucinatory percepts Our senses ‘grab’ sensations from the situations

in which we are present In considering visual perception, Churchland (2013) speaks about the eye taking a photograph of the objects that are

in its current field of view, a process that it accomplishes in milliseconds The data we gather lasts a brief amount of time and is constantly replaced

by other, more contemporary sensations The speed of sensual replacement

is usually so rapid that we typically experience sensations as a continuous stream rather than as discrete events.2 What we have learnt about the world, within which we experience sensations, is that it is a world that varies little and is composed of events and items that most often do not change signifi-cantly over time

Churchland (2013) sees the learning brain as possessing enduring

symme-tries through, which over an extended period, we construct an

understand-ing of our veridical experiences as beunderstand-ing fundamental, tangible, or intangible ideas that are intelligible through reference to relatively permanent learned relationships Thus in our daily encounters with the world the brain accesses and uses sensations gathered through the senses in tandem with our learnt and assembled store of neural representations The brain-based storage system, Churchland proposes, takes the form of high-dimensional maps (understood as a metaphor of representation that allows correspondence, as mentioned earlier) of exceptional resolution and containing features of the specific domain These maps have an enormous number of intricate inter-connections that embody the similarities and differences between events as a represented conceptual framework, which enclose a person’s probable array

of procedural activities and events

Our internal maps, which, to varying degrees, approximately correspond

to the world around us, allow us to form expectations and develop standings One of the features of a map that makes it useful is that locations can be indicated by, for example, the longitude and latitude coordinates of a cartographic map or some other systematic catalogue In our everyday lives,

under-we can similarly locate ourselves within our physical world through our sensations in reference to our mental maps Furthermore, a similar under-taking can be seen to account for the process of understanding ‘things’ and specific and generalized events How we understand an object is based upon the sensations we gather from the object through reference to our semantic maps or conceptual frameworks

To further explore the notion that sensations are mapped to ties through a process of correspondence, Churcland (2013) notes how the activity of our senses is related directly to our more generalized abstract feature domain maps: This mapping process locates us in possible objec-tive situations Sense organs, he says, have time-based signature patterns

externali-across n levels of simultaneously activated specific neurons that are related

to that specific sense modality: a pattern of activity that embodies a tion relevant map This neuronal activity signature specifies abstract fea- tures that are encountered to a specific coordinate location within space

situa-of n dimensionality Churchland claims that, if we did not have internal

maps that are available to our senses to index from, we would not be able

to understand our world These maps, he says, continually index our, “ many feature-space maps to provide us with an unfolding understanding of our unfolding objective world-situation” (Churchland, 2013, p ix).Here I am asserting that mapping allows a meaningful understanding of something we perceive rather than the rudimentary sensing of such events, whereof the process of perception is based upon the sensations which we experience couched within our conceptual frameworks In this chapter,

I will claim this bipartite framework is necessary to develop a metaphorical template that allows the development and analysis of qualitative research into consumer behaviour In addition, if we navigate our world through our senses and concepts then it seems reasonable to posit that senses and concepts structure human behaviour, and a similar framework will prove appropriate in designing research to investigate human behaviour

I also noted earlier that, whilst our sensations are registered rapidly and are precise and situation specific, our conceptual frameworks are made of abstract universals that transcend specific locations and times I commented upon metaphors being one form of abstract universal In this essay, I will

be using the facet theory approach from which I will borrow its mapping sentence as a framework, and within this structure I will identify concep-tual templates of specific empirically based abstract universals for identify-ing subsections for the qualitative research process The mapping sentence,

I will claim, when understood within an analogous extension of land’s map-indexing, is a metaphorical categorical structure; a metaphor of the research process that may be used to facilitate the design and analysis of ethnographic consumer research

Church-UNIFYING QUALITATIVE CONSUMER RESEARCH

Facet theory is an approach to research in the social sciences and humanities that attempts to understand the combined concurrent influences of multiple factors upon a specified domain (see, Canter, 1985) Facet theory achieves this by breaking down a research project or research area into parts that are meaningful to respondents and then attempting to reassemble these parts

in a way that provides greater understanding of the parts and of the ingful whole Using the process of theoretical disassembly and theoretical/empirical reassembly increases the likelihood that research will precede with clearly and meaningfully defined content and research design This mereo-logical3 approach to the understanding of a research domain and the research procedures being used to investigate it is realized through clear and explicit establishment of a context specific definition know as a mapping sentence Facet theory, using the mapping sentence, has addressed research design and has produced increased understanding of a wide range of research domains (Hackett, 2014) I will later employ the mapping sentence in relation to

mean-the domain of qualitative consumer research I will be using mean-the mapping sentence as Elizur suggests because: “The mapping sentence presents the complete research design in the form of a sentence which is easy to compre-hend” (1970, p 55) Thus facet theory is concerned with the study of the mereological nature of human experience.

The identification of a domain of interest is the initial task when taking facet theory based research This definitional ‘whole’ is then subdi-vided into categorical parts which taken together define the content of the specified domain.4 The facets or categories that are employed by an indi-vidual to structure the way they understand their life experiences are cardi-nal in attempting to appreciate human life Facet theory incorporates this notion of the “essentiality of categories” to disassemble an interest domain into parts that are significant to the individuals or groups of interest Having meaningfully dissected a domain in this way, these components are reassem-bled into a totality in a manner designed to provide greater understanding of the whole domain through explicitly stated context specific definitional cat-egories Within qualitative consumer research, the employment of such defi-nitional categories is of importance in enabling research with well-defined content This definition will likely yield research results that are valid, reli-able, and which accurately address the research area interest

under-Mapping sentences are constructed through including in their tion mutually exclusive components of the research area To illustrate this, if

composi-I make the (potentially erroneous) assumption that the contents of this book form a working definition of ‘qualitative research’, then the mereological consideration of its chapters may offer an increased understanding of the process of qualitative consumer research To illustrate this, here is a list of the book’s chapters:

Generating hypotheses

Ethics in relation to qualitative consumer research

Recruitment and sampling procedures

Participant observations and interviews

Observation and focus groups

Autoethnography

Focus group interview

Projective techniques

In-depth interviews

Environmental influences upon consumer behaviour

Artifacts and archival research

Visual and sensory material

With the book’s content clearly displayed, we are able to appreciate the extent of the text’s scope and the many and varied components that fall under the remit of qualitative consumer research However, questions arise such as: How can we claim that these discrete elements come together to form a coherent academic or professional discipline? What are the most basic units that form what may be called a consumer ethnographic ontol-ogy? What are the part-to-whole and part-to-part relationships of both the earlier listed elements and other ‘parts’ that may be identified in a poten-tial ontology? Any answers to these questions are theoretical at this stage However, an initial mereological (part to part, part to whole) definition can be offered through clustering together what appear to be the associ-ated elements of consumer ethnography in the previously noted list For example:

Research Planning

generating hypotheses

ethics in relation to qualitative consumer research

recruitment and sampling procedures

what can go wrong?

visual and sensory material

artifacts and archival research

Investigation Through Text-Based Research

Interpreting Ethnographic Research

neuroscience

heterophenomenology

The categories I formed earlier form an initial attempt to bring a tural definition and meaningful coherence to the content domain of quali-tative consumer research Descriptive names for each category are also provided Moreover, whilst the allocation of some of the items to more superordinate or ontological categories appears to offer little controversy

struc-(for example, participant observation to observation research) other visions are more problematic (for instance, ethics in relation to qualitative

subdi-consumer research to the category of research planning), as ethical

consid-erations obviously run throughout the research process and do not end at the planning stage of a research project Notwithstanding these criticisms, the ontological structure I propose is a starting point for the consideration

of the domain of qualitative consumer research The aforementioned egory system does have one extremely important feature in that the elements under the ontological categories are mutually exclusive divisions that define the content area and thus make it suitable as a basis for constructing a map-ping sentence

cat-The mapping sentence is a set of interrelated hypotheses of content ture, a model of a coherent whole, and a tool that the researcher can use

struc-to deduce meaning from his or her results The mapping sentence is also a visual graphic for displaying the meaning of research results in a manner that is perhaps more easily understood than some other methods Finally, when multiple components of a research project employ the mapping sen-tence in their design and analyses, then similarities present in research study findings can be easily appreciated and a corpus of knowledge regarding a research domain may be assembled As Dov Elizur (1970, p 55) has said,

“The mapping sentence presents the complete research design in the form of

a sentence which is easy to comprehend .” A mapping sentence is read in the same way an ordinary language-based sentence is read

MAPPING SENTENCES FOR QUALITATIVE

CONSUMER RESEARCH

Since the mid-twentieth century, mapping sentences have been used to design and analyse research from several disciplines within the social sci-ences and humanities Until recently, these studies have almost exclusively involved the collection of quantitative data By adopting this approach and

by using this form of data, facet theory and the mapping sentence has duced structural explanations of content domains based upon the nonmetric correlations between survey items that represent a profile of facet elements

pro-from a mapping sentence In the qualitative or philosophical use of the ping sentence that I have developed (see Hackett, 2013, 2014), quantitative empirical data do not form part of either research procedure or analysis.

map-So far I have presented a theoretical consideration of mapping sentences, and I will now illustrate how this may be understood and used in refer-ence to the Mapping Sentence for Research Planning in figure 1.1 In this example, the letter (x) designates the individual person who is making the assessment of research content contained in the sentence Reading further through the sentence, the first content facet is the facet of hypotheses, which

is labelled in emboldened text Under this facet label are specified the ments of this facet (given in italics within brackets) When reading a map-ping sentence, one element is selected from each of the facets up to but not including the range facet The sentence is read several times each with a different combinations of facet elements The range facet specifies the range across which assessments are made or the psychological sense in which the domain is understood In this example, the range is of the psychological sense of the appropriateness of a given manner of planning and designing

ele-a quele-alitele-ative reseele-arch project The rele-ange fele-acet is extremely importele-ant ele-as it

Figure 1.1 Mapping Sentence for Research Planning

focuses responses or evaluations and determines the questions a mapping sentence attempts to answer Not mentioned in this mapping sentence, or in any of the mapping sentences in this chapter, are background facets: Back-ground facets specify characteristics of respondents or the research context and comprise study specific facets and elements (background facets are omitted to simplify my argument).

In research employing a mapping sentence, research literature viewing similar content areas that have used a mapping sentence are identified and the mapping sentence forms the basis for adaptation to the new research context Literature from the specific research domain that did not use a mapping sentence may also be viewed, and, if appropriate, the variables

in these studies incorporated into a mapping sentence design A mapping sentence allows for the entirety of a domain of interest to be described, understood, and communicated as a sentence of relatively normal prose In the example given in figure 1.1, the mapping sentence is the initial theoreti-cal attempt I have made to describe the domain of planning a qualitative research project The mapping sentence comprises an obviously restricted number of possible facets and elements, and the mapping sentence and its components are probably inadequate to depict all possible instances within this domain Confidence in the content and structure of a mapping sen-tence may be increased from a theoretical series of hypotheses about a con-tent domain to become more ‘valid’ through empirical investigations into the domain area using the mapping sentence to guide design explorations Within any specific research study facets, facet elements, background fac-ets, and the range over which observations are undertaken may be deleted, modified, or other components added to the mapping sentence that make the sentence a better fit to specific content

Looking at the mapping sentence in figure 1.1 (for example), as this is an initial, generic template, no background facets are included However, it may

be felt that there are specific subpopulations of respondents who will be the subject of investigations and these may be included For instance, gender may

be suspected pertinent in differentiating respondents in terms of the specific content domain and would be included as a background facet with facet ele-ments of male, female, transgender, etc., as elements are pertinent to the study Again in reference to the mapping sentence in figure 1.1, any of the other facets may vary, such as the software facet may be deemed inappropriate and thus removed or may remain with modified facet elements, which replace appropriate to inappropriate elements with the cost of the software, etc

In the example mapping sentence, all the example facet elements are of

a continuous format, ranging between two extreme poles: lesser to great, appropriate to inappropriate It is perhaps more common for elements to be discrete units of understanding as related to the facet Again, if we consider the software facet, this may have elements of Microsoft, Mac, and Linux,

or elements of desktop, laptop, handheld, or tablet Facet and element position are determined by being meaningful to respondents for a content

com-domain within a context Mapping sentences progress from being cal hypotheses to more veridical propositions through a process of empirical investigation, which supports or refutes the applicability and perhaps the applied utility of the mapping sentence.

theoreti-MAPPING SENTENCES FOR THE DESIGN OF QUALITATIVE

CONSUMER RESEARCH

To this point in this chapter, even though I have given the illustration of the Mapping Sentence for Research Planning as an example mapping sen-tence, I have essentially been discussing mapping sentences as theoretical devices for guiding research design and execution I now propose a series

of mapping sentences for use at various stages of the qualitative consumer research process (figures 1.1 to 1.6) These address designing observational research, designing investigation of consumers’ subconscious representa-tions, designing investigation through interview research, designing investi-gation through text-based research, and interpreting ethnographic research

I chose to formulate six mapping sentence as earlier in this essay I strated chapters to ‘apparently’ fall into one of these categories I decided not to develop a mapping sentence for the whole of the area of qualitative consumer research, as this would have resulted in a sentence so large and complex as to make it unintelligible The extent of a mapping sentence is defined by the content domain it covers which in turn is delimited both by common understanding of the domain and a balance between banality and hypercomplexity which results respectively from too few facets to too many facets

demon-Each mapping sentence in the examples that follow is a template for a ferent part of the process of conducting qualitative consumer research The mapping sentence in figure 1.2 addresses designing observational consumer research In this sentence, the researcher has the option of selecting from four different observational procedures The first two procedures are par-ticipant and nonparticipant observation In the former, the elements are of high or low levels of collaborative understanding, which indicates the type

dif-of knowledge that will result from participant observation The second dif-of these facets, nonparticipant observation, has elements of high and low lev-els of impartial understanding These two different sets of elements clearly demonstrate the different type of knowledge that originates from two simi-lar sounding techniques (both are observational) The mapping sentence’s third facet specifies the procedure of autoethnography Autoethnography is

a form of participant observation in which the researcher becomes his or her own subject and writes what is essentially a biography about his or her own experiences whilst attempting to remain relatively objective (see chapter 8

in this volume) The nondiscrete elements of this facet are greater biographical insightful to lesser autobiographical insightful which explicitly

auto-specify the form of understanding produced using this approach: knowledge that is deeply personal in nature The final facet in this mapping sentence for observational consumer research is a facet that presents the researcher with the opportunity to select that his or her scrutiny will be upon online con-sumer culture surrounding their subject matter of interest With ever-greater amounts of commercial life residing on the Internet (see chapter 18 in this volume), the facet of netnography has nondiscrete elements that indicate choosing this form of ethnographic investigation will likely yield greater cul-tural insight to lesser cultural insight Finally, the range facet indicates that making a choice of observational method will result in the more appropriate

to less appropriate techniques being chosen and consequently yielding more appropriate to less appropriate results

In figure 1.3, I present a mapping sentence that can be used to assist in the design of investigations into consumers’ subconscious representations Here the first facet is of visual or sensory ethnography The researcher mak-ing such a choice hopes to produce sensory data that falls on a continuum from less implicit/more edited to more implicit/less edited The second facet considers the type of information that will result from the employment of

Figure 1.2 Mapping Sentence for Designing Observational Research

projective techniques: a greater understanding of subconscious processes to

a lesser understanding of the subconscious processes associated with the individual consumer The final content facet in this mapping sentence is of artifacts and archival material In this instance, the nondiscrete facet ele-ments run from information that reveals to information that obscures con-sumer understanding Finally, the range facet indicates that choices may be more appropriate to less appropriate a technique for revealing consumer understanding

In figure 1.4, I offer a mapping sentence for designing investigations that employ interview approaches in consumer research This mapping sentence again has a range facet, which specifies that design choices have the con-sequence of being more to less appropriate for any given interview-based research study The first facet specifies the employment of in-depth inter-views with the nondiscrete elements of disclosing to a larger extent to dis-closing to a lesser extent, consumer’s thoughts, feeling, and activities The second content facet is of focus group interview which is specified in the continuous elements of revealing more ideas/revelations to revealing fewer ideas/revelations, which will enable problem solving within a consumer behaviour context

Text-based research is the focus of the mapping sentence presented in figure 1.5 Here it can be seen that the first content facet states how using

a textual or narrative approach will have the effect of choosing a design that will illustrate considerably to illustrate inconsiderably, the historical record of respondents’ experiences with the product or service Again, the

Figure 1.3 Mapping Sentence for Designing Investigation of Consumers’

Subcon-scious Representations

Figure 1.4 Mapping Sentence for Designing Investigation through Interview Research

Figure 1.5 Mapping Sentence for Designing Investigation Through Text-based

Research

range facet specifies the degree of appropriateness of this approach Finally,

in figure 1.6, I offer a mapping sentence that provides guidance in ways to undertake interpretative analysis in ethnographic consumer research This mapping sentence is somewhat different than previous mapping sentences as its content facets are concerned with ways of performing analysis of quali-tative consumer research The range facet is of extreme importance and clearly specifies that this facet ranges from great to lesser levels of consumer understanding being produced by adopting either of the two interpretative approaches The first of these approaches are neuroscientific interpretations with the continuous elements of more explication to less explication, as a consequence of interpreting consumer behaviour by examining its neuro-logical basis and the knowledge this generates The second content facet is concerned with the data being more amenable to less amenable to analy-sis that interprets consumer behaviour within a heterophenomenological

framework where this approach is able to develop greater to lesser standing of subjective, first-person consumer experience.

under-CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter, I have presented the mapping sentence as a device to assist

in the design of qualitative consumer research The six mapping sentences

I proposed each offered a template to assist in the choices associated with the design and interpretation of qualitative consumer research These six frameworks have been developed with a qualitative approach to consumer research clearly to the fore of my thinking and incorporate qualitative research procedures and analyses However, there is no reason why quan-titative consumer research should not be amenable to having mapping sen-tences developed that would assist in their clear and explicit design and analyses Another approach to research that would be especially appropri-ate to the use of a mapping sentence procedure is that of mixed-method consumer research Mixed-method research, because of the wide variety

of extremely different data gathering approaches it uses and types of data each approach produces, would find the mapping sentence of particular rel-evance in unifying the content of the research within a flexible framework

NOTES

1 Although this thesis applies to many forms of behaviour.

2 This is obviously very often not the case, but my reasons for concentrating, initially at least, will be made apparent.

Figure 1.6 Mapping Sentence for Interpreting Ethnographic Research

3 Mereology is the thorough philosophical study of the relationships between parts and whole which is sometime extended to encompass part-to-part relationships.

4 Domains are usually specifications of specific behaviours or experiences.

Elizur, D (1970) Adaptation to Innovation: A Facet Analysis of the Case of the Computer, Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press.

Hackett, P.M.W (1995) Conservation and the Consumer: Understanding mental Concern, London: Routledge.

Environ-Hackett, P.M.W (2013) Fine Art and Perceptual Neuroscience: Field of Vision and the Painted Grid, London: Psychology Press.

Hackett, P.M.W (2014) Facet Theory and the Mapping Sentence: Evolving phy, Use and Application, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Philoso-Searle, J (2015) Seeing Things as They Are: A Theory of Perception, Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

For most of human history, starvation has been a major problem Recently, food science, with its mass production of inexpensive food, has triggered an obesity and concomitant health epidemic in the industrialized world Especially in the United States, with its premium on idealized beauty, weight reduction programs and tools of varying cost and complexity have grown into a major industry Given this health crisis and body image obses-sion, U.S food marketers and psychologists have been researching domains from consumer behavior to product development.

Consider Wansink and Payne’s (2008) ethnographic study of tion behavior among diners at Chinese buffets These researchers recruited and trained 22 observers, who they dispatched to 11 all-you-can-eat Chi-nese buffets across the United States The observers “sat in unobtrusive [sic] locations in the restaurants and recorded the behavior of randomly selected patrons on a coding sheet from the time they were seated at the restaurant until the time they left” (Wansink and Payne, 2008, p 1957)

consump-During two training sessions conducted by the researchers, the observers learned to estimate patrons’ age, height, and weight They also learned to code patrons’ seating and serving behaviors (e.g., seated at booth or table, distance from buffet table, face or back to buffet table, browsed buffet or promptly served themselves, size of plate used), as prior research suggested

food acquisition effort would relate inversely to quantity consumed Eating behavior was coded for utensils used (chopsticks versus fork), napkin place-ment (lap versus not lap), average number of chews per mouthful, and plate waste Wansink and Payne posited patrons with a lower body mass index ((BMI) calculated from coders’ weight and height estimates) would use smaller utensils (i.e., chopsticks) and dine more conscientiously (i.e., place napkin in lap, chew more thoroughly) The findings: lower BMI patrons tend to sit at a booth, browse the buffet before serving themselves, use chop-sticks, place a napkin in their laps, and create more plate waste.

The methodological literature suggests field researchers face three major ethical issues: the researcher/subject relationship, epistemological issues, and research design (Orb, Eisenhauer, & Wynaden, 2000) To these three issues,

we add a fourth: net societal benefit of the research Research resources are finite and often supplied by public sources Given their source and scarcity, researchers should be mindful of resource usage and should ask themselves,

“Just because a study is possible, will it contribute meaningfully to human knowledge”?

Prima facie, Wansink and Payne’s (2008) study seems amoral They received approval for the study from their university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) Although some IRB members may lack adequate qualitative methods training (Lichtman, 2014), it is reasonable to assume that com-pliance with the ethical assessments of IRB members should suffice Fur-thermore, it seems improbable that Wansink and Payne’s study could harm buffet patrons (i.e., study participants), who were observed in a public space (Lichtman, 2014) and likely were oblivious to being observed However, such a cursory view ignores several ethical considerations

Although one might initially dismiss the existence of a problematic research/subject relationship, this ignores the obligation to consider each patron’s autonomy Once human beings are involved, regardless of measure-ment unobtrusiveness, their attitudes toward serving as research subjects must be heeded, especially for sensitive research topics (e.g., gambling; Li, 2008) Consider recent revelations about Google Glass After its launch, many consumers judged the product as freaky, weird, and an invasion of privacy (Kingsley-Hughes, 2014) Such consumer resistance has caused this once highly anticipated product to fall far short of sales estimates (Falk, 2014) Similarly, many of Wansink and Payne’s buffet patrons, especially those judged as obese, would have resented learning that a paid observer had counted their chews per mouthful (i.e., freaky and weird), invaded their privacy, and classified them in an unflattering way Of course, Wansink and Payne would argue unobtrusive observation was vital to their study,

as informing patrons they were being observed was likely to alter their ing behaviors (e.g., trigger social desirability biases) Nonetheless, they have compromised buffet patrons’ autonomy

din-Regardless of dedication and training, observers were assigned an overly complex task they could not perform accurately in real time (Wansink &

Payne, 2008) (Video recording and subsequent multiobserver coding would improve accuracy at the expense of introducing another problem: video recording people without their consent.) In this research, observers estimated buffet patrons’ height, weight, and physiology (i.e., ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph) Although Wansink and Payne contend trained observers are more accurate than untrained people at such estimation tasks, even trained observers’ estimates are subjective and prone to error, espe-cially once observer fatigue manifests itself Hence, the unobtrusive assess-ment of each buffet patron’s BMI was assessed inaccurately Observers also recorded patrons’ mean chews per mouthful, which seems an excessively taxing and/or obtrusive task depending on the observer’s position relative

to the patron Without an excellent view, counting chews per mouthful accurately would be problematic However, observer positioning and the gaze intensity required to count chews accurately make it likely that buffet patrons were aware of being observed, likely altering their dining behavior Our point: As neither BMI nor chews per mouthful could be assessed accu-rately by the observers, the cost to unwitting research subjects’ autonomy may exceed the value of the reported results

Researchers should use ethically appropriate study designs and methods

to answer their research question(s) The major ethical problem posed by Wansink and Payne’s study design is the lack of informed consent by buf-fet patrons Wansink and Payne could have conducted a small pilot study

to investigate bias due to informing subjects of their procedure If the pilot study showed informing subjects a priori did not change behavior, violating participants’ privacy and autonomy was unjustified If the pilot study showed a prior informed consent did affect observed behaviors, the researchers were still ethically obligated to obtain written consent and to debrief participants once they completed the procedure Seemingly, none of the observers debriefed anyone, thus compounding the unethical treatment

of study subjects

Deciding whether research should be undertaken simply because it is possible requires careful thought Researchers should ask themselves: “So what”? Would fellow researchers’ and practitioners’ response to the findings be: “That was unexpected”? Research findings that neither push forward the frontiers of knowledge nor improve practice are fruitless Application

of the results also is a concern Wansink and Payne report increased tion control via the use of smaller plates is the key to reducing overeating at buffets Prima facie, reduced overeating is a ‘good’ result from a utilitarian perspective (more about utilitarianism later) However, this implies subtly manipulating consumers and threatening their autonomy

por-Wansink and Payne conducted the type of study meant to identify the best way to ‘nudge’ people into behaviors experts deem more personally and socially favorable (e.g., libertarian paternalism; Thaler & Sunstein, 2009) Wansink and Payne attempted to discover the most effective environmental cues to encourage people to behave more in their own and society’s best

interest Although many people believe such manipulation leads to good results and is therefore acceptable, a necessary corollary of freedom and human autonomy is “if you allow people to choose, they may and often will choose contrary to conventional or expert judgment” Of course, the success of these cues may depend on people’s ignorance of the fact that they are being manipulated Although seemingly well intentioned, research in the vein of Wansink and Payne (2008) unknowingly strips people of their autonomy and such ethnographic research is far from ethically neutral.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Ethnographic methods are increasingly popular among scholars and nesses adapting to an increasingly complex social, political, and economic world Success in evermore-customized markets requires marketers to under-stand consumers’ increasingly complex motivations Marketing concepts such as ‘value cocreation’, in which companies involve customers as value cocreators (Lusch & Vargo, 2006; Payne, Storbacka, & Frow, 2008) reflect this trend To involve customers as part and parcel of the product develop-ment team, the requisite understanding of consumers’ intimate psychology, motivation, and actions often relies on successfully executed ethnographic research (Mariampolski, 2006) Although intimate consumer-researcher contact suggests the four previously broached ethical issues (researcher/sub-ject relationship, epistemological issues, research design, and net societal benefit of the research), the extant social science literature is scattershot in its treatment of qualitative research ethics For example:

busi-• Lichtman (2014) suggests several guiding principles (do no harm, vacy and anonymity, confidentiality, informed consent, intrusiveness, data ownership, fairness)

pri-• Orb, Eisenhauer, and Wynaden (2000) and DeWaal (2007) focus on the properties of ethical research, such as doing good, avoiding harm, respecting privacy, fairness, and reciprocity

• Marzano (2007) and Graffigna, Bosio, and Olson (2010) discuss cross-disciplinary and cross-country differences in ethically acceptable research practices

• Ponterotto (2010, 2013) proposes various competencies for ing ethical qualitative research within culturally diverse communities

conduct-• Banister (2007), Brownlow and O’Dell (2002), DeLorme, Zinkhan, and French (2001), Eysenbach and Till (2001), Hair and Clark (2007), Matthews and Cramer (2008), McAuliffe (2003), and Whiteman (2007) consider ethical issues associated with studying online com-munities (lurking, recording, webcams, informed consent, vulnerable populations, privacy, interpreting and needing unified ethical codes of research conduct, participant harm)

• Richards and Schwartz (2002) suggest the sociological and pological literatures guide qualitative medical research ethics; for example, codes of professional practice promulgated by professional associations like the British Sociological Association and the British Medical Association.

anthro-• Mauthner, Birch, Jessop, and Miller (2002) and Aluwihare-Samaranayake (2012) discuss a rule-based system that mandates approval from Insti-tutional Review Boards (IRB), which would accept studies predicated

on ideals such as autonomy, confidentiality, respect, and beneficence

• Head (2009) puzzles over the appropriateness of remunerating tive research participants

qualita-• Barton (2011) and Muchmore (2002) ponder the ethics of life history and autoethnographic studies

• Daley (2012), Keenan (2012), Morrison, Gregory, Thibodeau, and Copeland (2012), and Wilson and Hodgson (2012) fret over recruit-ing and studying sensitive population members (e.g., obese or troubled teens, gays, drug abusers)

• Given the researcher-participant power imbalance, Harley (2012) questions the ethicality of using photo-elicitation methods to study marginalized people, and Karnieli-Miller, Strier, and Pessach (2009) offer a framework for addressing power questions that arise through-out the research process

• Bishop (2009), Kuula (2010, 2011) and Einwohner (2011) express uncertainty about the use of archived qualitative data

The lack of a unifying ethical paradigm in qualitative research in general and ethnographic research in particular is problematic and provides uncer-tain guidance about appropriate practice Without an understanding of ethical theory, the terms used in the aforementioned literatures are ambigu-ous For instance, how should ‘fairness’ be determined? Is fairness ‘equality

of results’ or ‘equality of opportunity’? If the latter, how can equality be achieved when resources and individual ability are inherently unequal? If

‘equality of opportunity’ requires ‘equality of results’, then is the tion unworkable?

proposi-Despite the lack of a coherent qualitative research ethics literature, the semicoherent philosophical ethics literature suggests a structured approach

to ethnographic research ethics A cursory review of business and sophical ethics texts shows similarities, such as challenges to ethics, utilitar-ian perspectives, deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and moral minimums (DesJardins, 2011; Laczniak & Murphy, 1993; Rachels and Rachels, 2001) Furthermore, an understanding of these major theories is necessary, as they provide the foundational pillars upon which all the forgoing principles, concepts, and codes are premised In the next section, we consider the major ethical theories and associated philosophical challenges requisite to a

philo-thorough understanding of how and why ethnographers must ponder these issues before, during, and after conducting their studies.

PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC

RESEARCH ETHICS

To identify a valid ethical theory, we must identify its properties We posit

a valid theory has three properties First, it must be based on logic and not emotion This property is difficult to achieve because decisions about human engagement often, and understandably, are emotionally charged However, emotions must not overly influence decisions To the extent emotions and focus on logic and critical processes can be set aside, people are obligated

to do so Second, a valid theory cannot allow for exceptions, i.e., it cannot allow an individual, group, society, or nation to claim special status as an entity above or beyond the principles of morality Third, a valid theory must lend itself to universally applicable principles, rules, or methods for deter-mining morally acceptable conduct

These principles are important for two reasons First, philosophers have long debated them For example, one consumer ethnographer has argued that modern medical and psychological research show consumers have little control over their purchasing decisions (Lindstrom, 2008) If true, it is prob-lematic for ethics, as it would justify subjectivism Second, these principles provide a methodology for examining what makes the valid ethical theo-ries superior to other ethical theories Each valid theory is partially flawed because no theory can completely explain or provide absolute solutions to every ethical dilemma However, unlike invalid challenges, these theories are not ‘fatally’ flawed because they meet three minimum criteria

PHILOSOPHICAL CHALLENGES TO ETHICS

Subjectivism

Subjectivism, which is the belief there are no ‘universal truths’, emerges most clearly in solipsism, which is the theory that ‘the self is all one can really know’ Many people find subjectivism appealing because it seems true; we can never really know what it is like to be someone else and ethical judgments often seem mere opinions Unlike the intersubjectively certifiable formulas and proofs of science and mathematics, ethics lacks formal proofs When coupled with postmodernity—for example, in Nietzsche’s philoso-phy, solipsism can be seductive Although Nietzsche was not a subjectivist because he suggested ‘will to power’ as a solution to the ‘lack of worldly meaning’ problem (Nietzsche, 1966), he started the wheels of doubt turn-ing Once started, the belief that there are no a priori truths about moral

knowledge is difficult to overcome Critical reflection of meaning, as well as the value of human existence and social connections, can counter this belief

We contend that there are ethical proofs, as people can argue rationally why one ethical solution is superior Although it is possible to counterclaim that such arguments constitute mere opinion, their absence typically signals an irrational solution based on emotion or poorly grounded ethical intuitions

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism differs from subjectivism in that it assumes ethics are turally rather than personally based Superficially, this theory seems sound because societies vary widely in their accepted practices Both the anthropo-logical and sociological records, as well as the current respect for diversity and political correctness, enhance cultural relativism’s appeal However, a preference for neither diversity nor political correctness precludes judgments about a practice’s ethicality Respect for diversity and ethical reasoning are not mutually exclusive

The claim “there are no a priori universally accepted truths among tures” is false Although cultures vary widely, this claim is categorical; hence, one exception disproves it In fact, two prohibitions pertain to all societies

cul-• The prohibition against unjustifiably killing a fellow societal member

No society permitting indiscriminant killing of members is able Mature societies typically extend this moral duty to nonsocietal members

sustain-• The prohibition, even among the most primitive societies, against

bear-ing false witness about a fellow societal member Some level of trust

is requisite to any society’s survival A society permitting false witness would fail, as its members could not trust one another, hence preclud-ing cooperation Mature societies also typically extend this prohibition

to nonmembers

Having disproven the claim there are no ‘universal truths’ applicable to all societies, can we say more? Yes Although we identified only two ‘uni-versal truths’ applicable to all societies, many more have been or are becom-ing accepted worldwide For example, almost all nations now subscribe (at least in theory) to the idea that slave labor, unregulated child labor, torture, and genocide are forbidden acts Furthermore, there is a difference between societal member’s behavior and general societal attitudes about such behav-

ior As Socrates contends in The Republic (Plato, 2014), philosophers are

not needed to tell us what is happening; rather, they are needed to tell us

“the best we can become” Although some countries may tolerate cratic corruption and bribery, tolerance is not moral acceptance If we asked people in those countries if they condone such practices, we suspect they would answer ‘no’ It is doubtful women living in societies that oppress them concur with their treatment

Consider the following example:

Jean Smith sees item X As a result of seeing X, Smith wants X and has the ability to buy X However, Smith denies her desire and opts not buy X.

Many people would argue the example illustrates ‘free will’, as Smith opted not to buy X However, a determinism proponent would argue it does not illustrate ‘free will’ because Smith is not free to want what she wants Furthermore, her denial of what she wants may be motivated by other desires Perhaps she values something else even more, such as personal satisfaction in showing financial restraint Regardless, she is not free to want

‘something else’ either In fact, she may be responding to uncontrollable conscious preferences Initially, this theory seems false Consider examples

sub-of people acting altruistically Was not Mother Teresa’s dedication to caring for the world’s poorest, sickest, and most unwanted people truly unselfish? Not to a psychological egoist, who would argue she simply was doing as she wanted Perhaps she was motivated by personal satisfaction derived from her work or a belief that God instructed her to perform this work and she wanted to obey God Hence, she truly was driven by selfishness rather than altruism There is also a milder position, called Predominant Egoism, which sees psychological egoism operating most times

Ethical Egoism

In response to psychological egoism, Hobbes (1996) developed ethical ism, which posits people can channel their selfishness into positive outcomes Each person can create and enter a ‘social contract’ with others in which some rights are exchanged for increased security Because gains achieved through cooperation mandate reduced personal freedom, social institutions and rules should be structured to maximize overall welfare by considering each person’s self-interest

ego-Psychological egoism has at least three major flaws:

• It makes this categorical statement about human motivation: ple always act selfishly In ethics and the social sciences, categorical