The importance of psychological safety in qual
I recently attended my high school reunion — and it was more fun, and insightful, than I could have imagined.
Certainly, for any psychology enthusiast, a high school reunion is a real life laboratory for social connection. All sorts of people with a wide range of family histories, personal, academic and professional successes and failures, and different opinions on social, political and economic topics thrown together in a room with alcohol to catch up on the years while dancing (terribly) in one frantic, high-stakes night.
In our highly-charged social and political culture today, what could go wrong?
But in contrast to a group of strangers getting together, this was a group of people that have known each other for decades. We grew up together, we grew together and we share common memories. Our history together has built a foundation that can endure a few cracks here and there without crumbling.
So when talk turned to politics, we were able to talk, listen, disagree, challenge, and come back together. And though no world issues were actually solved at my reunion, it was heartening to come away having witnessed civil discourse in action.
Reconnecting with differently-minded people — friends I’d known for decades — left me feeling energized around the kind of work I do studying human connection, and more positive about society’s potential to narrow the gaps that divide us.
Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of connecting with people who knew you when, and reflecting on what it is about these relationships that allow people to be open — and vulnerable — enough to listen to other points of view.
It comes down to being able to fall back on the deep bonds created during the formative years — using the accrued trust of relationship as a psychological safety net to cushion the blow of an ego hit when presented with different beliefs. So when a controversial topic comes up, instead of retrenching to protect oneself, there is a feeling of safety that allows for hearing a different opinion.
And I’ve been thinking about how to leverage this insight in research to go even deeper in building connections with consumers.
Every qualitative researcher understands the importance of building rapport with respondents — one of the reasons qual can go so deep is because we leverage the human-to-human dynamic. We work hard to find common ground and create a personal dynamic early on in our sessions, so when it comes to the issues that are hard to talk about we have a better chance of coaxing people to go there with us.
Rapport-building at the front of an interview works because it gives us time to build the psychological safety net that is so critical in connecting with others. Sure, we may only have time to build a small one — but it offers some kind of protection from a metaphorical fall.
First I think it’s helpful to re-visit the definition of psychological safety: it’sthe belief that you can be authentic, speak your mind, and say what you feel without fear of judgement, humiliation or other negative reaction. Simply put — it means you can be your authentic self — bold, brilliant and unapologetically you — without fear.
The way to drive psychological safety is to practice unconditional positive regard, signifying an acceptance of any and all opinions, ideas and feedback that come our way in an interview.
I know we’ve all experienced clients telling us to cut the warmup shortbecause they have a lot to cover. And I’m certain we’ve all pushed back and told them if we do that, we’ll get far less value from the session. It’s like someone walking up to you in line at Starbucks and asking you to share your thoughts about X. True connection doesn’t happen that way. But I think there are other ways we can explain the importance of warm-ups to our clients, and perhaps even better ways to forge connections and build the psychological safety needed for productive conversations.
And then how do we signal unconditional positive regard, and build psychological safety for the consumers we interview?
By encouraging, facilitating and demonstrating authenticity:
Emphasize we are interested in hearing people’s thoughts, whether or not we agree with them, they are popular, or other people agree. This can be done in advance of even meeting them through a short email or video message.
Remind them their thoughts, opinions and beliefs are 100% valid and shared by other people that are not present, so we don’t just want — we need — to hear them. Giving permission to speak for others is a bit projective, and can be useful in building trust. This is also something that can be communicated in advance.
Demonstrate 100% neutrality and keep the focus on our respondents during the conversation. In yoga, the teacher suspends any expression of his or herself so her students can be free to have their own personal experience. We have to do this as moderators if we truly want to hear the unblemished truth from our consumers.
Lean in when we hear something that hits a nerve — something that sounds crazy and or we don’t personally agree with — that’s our signal to listen, probe and try to understand why. A rule of thumb: the more uncomfortable an issue feels, the more impactful an insight you might be discovering.
Similar to building High Quality Connections, developing psychological safety can be done deliberately with the right balance of these techniques, together with a curiously empathetic approach. And it’ll pay dividends in the rich insights you’ll be able to collect for your clients.
And to further prove the value of psychological safety, the conversations I had at my high school reunion shifted my thoughts on a number of issues I’d been pretty firm on — and it gave me high hopes for society if we can collectively focus on creating psychological safety for one another.
