XLRI Jamshedpur on September 22 announced the opening up of a Behavioral Lab on campus, which will allow researchers to explore the minds of prospective consumers across industries.
“The lab will provide students and teachers with cutting-edge research tools designed to peer into the unconscious mind said to influence consumer choices and study behavioral trends. Several research projects, in the fields of behavior studies, organizational behavior studies, economic, finance, HRM etc, can be conducted at the lab,” said an XLRI press release.
The lab will undertake collaborative studies in close concert with all the departments within the XLRI campus. The lab is also forging tie-ups with researchers and institutes of repute in the field and looks forward to establishing itself as a one-stop solution for all behavioral and neurological research in management sciences. The lab has a camera set-up to record peoples responses at an interview room besides having a direct response machine, which displays through multiple monitors a subjects reaction to the advertisement of a product. It is also equipped with video-mixing equipment and a conference room.
The lab has chalked out plans to establish a consumer panel of over 3,000 people from different walks of life. The consumer panel will include people from urban and rural parts of Jamshedpur and East Singhbhum District. Jamshedpur, a cosmopolitan city with a population of over 14 lakh has a high literacy rate 83% and is a home to several industrial giants including Tata Steel and Tata Motors.
“Employees working in these companies and other companies in Jamshedpur come from different parts of the country thereby allowing selection of a diverse consumer panel by way of income, age, cultural background, education levels to carry out experiments and controlled testing,” said the XLRI release.
At present the lab is equipped with software like Qualtrics, Media Lab and equipments to run experiments based on the principles of cognitive psychology like direct response time machine that help in understanding whether the stimulus shown to people is having an emotional or cognitive impact. The Lab also has facilities such as one-way mirror observation rooms for group experiments. The lab has also subscribed to other advanced software to enable students and researchers in testing image-based stimulus rather than textual stimulus and thereby facilitate product and campaign effectiveness testing.
According to XLRI, there are plans to acquire more equipment and software for the lab. “It also has plans to forge collaborative initiatives for carrying out neurological research by tying up with local and national level neuro research centres and leading hospital chains in India. XLRI has already initiated the steps to forge tie-ups and partnerships with a view to have a pan-India footprint,” added XLRI.
According to Prof Varshney, the Chief Co-ordinator of the Lab, two studies are currently scheduled to be undertaken. The first study relates to rash driving hazards and road safety among youth and children on Indian roads. This study would help traffic authorities in designing more effective campaigns with a view to bringing about attitudinal changes. The second study pertains to understanding consumer concerns and expectations and how organizations can strive towards increasing consumer satisfaction and reduce purchase dissonance.