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For many researchers, 100 is a typical minimum sample size needed for an analysis of subgroups. Returning to the quiz questions posed above, for example, here are some of our market research magic numbers: We hang onto them like magic trinkets because they are easy, because they work, and because they are rooted in the fundamental ways we count, track time, or assign meaning to the world. What we do not typically acknowledge is that many of our own favorite numbers in research itself are similarly arbitrary. Market researchers continually see evidence that certain numbers and ideas hold an irrational sway over consumers and decision-makers. Gilbert also reminds us of a study reported in the Journal of Consumer Research suggesting that buyers are drawn to prices with vocally small sounds-for example, $2.33, which ends in small-sounding e’s, rather than $2.22, which ends in a large-sounding o. Which stocks should we buy? Studies show that investors see greater upside for a stock priced at $10.01 than for one priced at $9.99. How long should we take antibiotics? At least seven days, despite evidence that three days will do. What kinds of decisions? Gilbert gives us many examples. We think in these numbers (if you ask people to produce a random number between one and a hundred, their guesses will cluster around the handful that end in zero or five) and we talk in these numbers (we say we will be there in five or 10 minutes, not six or 11).īut these magic numbers don’t just dominate our thoughts and dictate our words they also drive our most important decisions. The “time numbers” and the “10 numbers” hold remarkable sway over our lives. Magic numbers are the familiar ones that have something to do with the way we keep track of time (7, say, and 24) or something to do with the way we count (namely, on 10 fingers). Yet the answers we give tend to have a certain magical sway over us whether or not they are completely true.
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Are there absolutely right answers to these questions? No. Most of us in the worlds of market research do have answers to these questions. What are the optimal number of points to include on a numeric scale for a survey?.What is the appropriate confidence level used in determining statistical significance?.When looking at subgroups within a sample, what is the minimum number of respondents required to detect important differences?.So here’s a quick quiz: Do you know these magic numbers that we see all the time in market research? “From the time of Kepler to that of Newton, and from Newton to Hartley, not only all things in external nature, but the subtlest mysteries of life and organization, and even of the intellect and moral being, were conjured within the magic circle of mathematical formulae.”Īll research, whether qualitative or quantitative, from focus groups to conjoint modeling, relies on a certain kind of number magic-an idea we have borrowed from Daniel Gilbert, who is a professor of psychology at Harvard University.