Advancements in understanding people and why they make decisions, specifically why they buy products and services, must be a cross-disciplinary science. It can’t be hacked. As much as we want to make a quick decision and connect click data to purchase you’re missing far too much of the science of decision-making.
How people connect and why they make decisions can be discovered through expressive writing.
We write to find out what we don’t know we know.
Writing fences in a structure that the Mind does not know how to do.
By looking at the density of certain, key driver words, we established connections between our thoughts and our decisions. By no means is writing a replacement for everything but it’s a strong indication that can bridge to everybody. Even those who don’t write, if they did so, writing about certain topics, a certain way, is consistent across large groups of populations. My research indicates this is true or at least, directionally correct. There are age and geography impact upon the outcome. For example articles and prepositions are strong indications of decision-making and why we buy what we do. As abstract as that might sound, it turns out it’s well-connected and understood.
Function words vs. content words also exhibit the usage of different parts of the brain. In the end, our words are like a signature that are mind maps out into the world outside of us. Otherwise, it’s trapped inside. This is some of my favorite research, that combines psychology, computational Linguistics and Mathematics. My favorite area is mapping this type of data to large population groups. So much of marketing, messaging and branding is wasted upon people that just don’t care or we’ll never care. We should stop bugging them and offer what they want not force them or trick them into buying something that is misrepresented or confusing. I would argue that over half of marketing is a really bad idea for the consumer. If you focus you can see clear results. Worried about the expansion later. Focus on understanding why people buy is critical to our organization.