The interview with Clotaire Rapaille was of particular interest to me for two reasons: 1) I love the study of language, of the meanings and emotions we associate with certain words, and of the simultaneously freeing and restrictive nature of language ; and 2) Before heading back to graduate school, I worked for two years in an Association for marketing and opinion researchers.
It's a little off-putting to think of our brains as reptilian, but I agree with Rapaille's idea that "when we [are] born, we have the reptilian brain" that concerns itself with survival. Then, development brings us to the "limbic" stage, which involves emotions, relationships and connections. Lastly, we come to the "cortex" stages, which -- as I understood it -- is the "thinking" stage, the "smart" stage, where we analyze and synthesize and all the other "izes."
Rapaille mentions that market researchers limit themselves by focusing too much on the cortex, on the thinking of consumers, and not on the reptilian (and limbic, too, I suppose) nature of consumers. So, I started thinking about something I buy regularly, a product that I love: Coca Cola. Now, at first, I could say, "I like the taste," but my drive to purchase it does, I think, come from my code for that word, which is
familial. My mother and my grandparents we big Coke drinkers, letting the young ones have sips (we'd have to drink milk with dinner). As I grew older, I developed a sort of loyalty to Coke. I know this is a very simple example, but with it, I can see that what drives me to buy certain products is more than my "thinking." It's deeper than that.
Thinking about the spread of information in this way and about the codes we have for words (and how they vary from culture to culture) seems important, almost revolutionary (if you have not thought of this before).
I think Rapaille should speak at one of
MRA's Conferences.
Labels: Academics
