Unobtrusive Research: using indirect measures

Unobtrusive research is a method of studying social behavior without affecting it. Public Relations specialists need to conduct this kind of indirect measure often in their careers in order to help avoid major problems, or simply to find an answer to a question regarding an important issue he or she is facing. These measures can be either qualitative or quantitative or both. Whatever the reason may be it is crucial that you do not create any kind of bias while conducting research as it may influence the data, or outcome.

For example, say you are the CEO of a PR firm and you promised that if you and your co-workers reached a certain business goal this week that you would throw an ice cream social at the office. You want to find out what kind of ice cream is liked by the most co-workers you could use an indirect measure of unobtrusive research to find out without actually confronting them and asking them directly.

You could go about this a few ways; you could use a survey (qualitative) or you can simply observe natural human behavior and actions (quantitative). 

The survey would ask, “what kind of ice cream do you think would be the office favorite? (out of the following ice cream flavors): mint chocolate chip, coffee, vanilla, chocolate or strawberry” and have them fill it out. You would then count up the amount of each ice cream flavors and figure out which one had the most votes. This would be considered to be qualitative research because it involves comparing different flavors of ice cream based on its qualities.

Or you could observe humans in their natural habitat around each of the flavors. You could do this by setting up a buffet style ice cream station in the middle of the office and telling all of your co-workers to grab a dish of your favorite ice cream. Then observe what ice cream has been eaten the most judging by the fullness of the ice cream cartons. This kind of research would be considered quantitative because it involves the quantity of something, therefore it can be measured with numbers or quantities.

Either way you are you practicing using unobtrusive indirect research because you are not influencing the participant behavior in each scenario you are just observing it. Conducting research in more than one way is always preferred in order to get the most reliable results possible.

This post does not contain a video from the show "The Spin Crowd" because there hasn't been an episode thus far containing unobtrusive research. But I did find an youtube video pertaining to the usage  of unobtrusive research on candid camera. This participants did not know they were being observed as they unknowingly walked into the wrong bathrooms. Researchers changed the signs on the exteriors of the bathrooms without the participants knowledge. They then watched the reactions the participants had to walking into the bathroom of the opposite sex.