Before you dive into focus groups, surveys, or behavioral data, try this: ask yourself—and your family—how you actually think, feel, and interact with the products and brands in your life.

Why does this matter?

Because much of how we learn as humans is through comparison. Understanding your own mental models, emotional triggers, and usage habits creates this critical learning benchmark when you’re trying to understand consumers who think and feel differently than you do.

Here’s the reality, we all have biases. No matter how hard we try to be objective, our personal experiences shape how we interpret what we hear. In qualitative research, there’s an entire body of work on “reflexivity”, the practice of acknowledging how our personal background, assumptions, and interactions shape every stage of research (Finlay, 2002 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/146879410200200205 Jamieson, 2023 https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spc3.12735 ).

The goal isn’t to eliminate bias (impossible), but to acknowledge where you are so you can recognize when someone else’s perspective genuinely diverges from yours. When a consumer says something that surprises you, that’s gold. But you are more likely to recognize the importance of the insight if you know your own starting point.

So, before your next research project have the research team as part of the kick-off go through an exercise where you each think about, write down and share your own personal category or brand experiences.

• How do you decide what to buy?
• What actually makes you loyal to a brand?
• When do you switch, abandon, or complain?
• What are your greatest frustrations and unmet needs?

Your answers aren’t universal truths, they’re your baseline. That baseline will help you and your teams make listening to others more meaningful and insightful.

What’s one assumption you’ve had challenged by simply paying attention to how differently someone else approaches a product or category?