MOTIVATIONAL ANALYSIS 



The motivational analysis in this sur- 

 vey was carried out by two different meth- 

 ods. The first method was to ask the re- 

 spondents open questions as to why they use 

 or do not use tuna so that they could spon- 

 taneously mention anj'' reason or motive. The 

 interviewers, all of whom were familiar 

 with probing techniques, were instructed to 

 probe as deeply as possible for any reasons 

 which the respondents did not bring out 

 immediately. There was a series of such 

 open questions. The users were asked what 

 would induce them to serve more tuna; non- 

 users were asked why they do not use tuna; 

 those who had stopped using tuna were 

 asked why they had stopped. The sporadic 

 users were asked why they used tuna so 

 seldom, those who now use tuna less often 

 than in the past were asked v;hy they had 

 reduced the number of tijnes they served it. 

 Similarly, there were open questions as to 

 why people liked their preferred style of 

 tuna; their preferred color; and v;hy they 

 served tuna hot only or why they served 

 tuna cold only. The responses to these 

 open questions ( as well as the responses to 

 the more usual direct questions ) have been 

 summarized in the first part of this report. 



Detemining the Product Image 



The second method which was used to 

 study motivations is statistical and re- 

 quires some technical explanation. The 

 first step in this analysis was to deter- 

 mine the "image" of the product --that is, 

 what each respondent thought of tuna, what 

 characteristics she attributes to it, what 

 associations the product evokes. There- 

 fore, each respondent was asked whether she 

 agreed or disagreed with a series of state- 

 ments, each representing a characteristic 

 of tuna, for example: "Tuna has a good 

 flavor." 



/rhe motivational technique 

 used in this phase of the analy- 

 sis is kno>m as the "guided 

 association question." Although 

 the respondent is asked only 

 whether or not he agrees or dis- 

 agrees with the statement, the 

 interviewer actually records 

 the intens ity of the answer. 

 Thus, strong agreement or 



disagreement (as well as less 

 intensely expressed feelings 

 or opinions) is noted by the 

 interviewer. In addition, the 

 statements on the questionnaire 

 were sometimes phrased posi- 

 tively and sometimes negatively— ^ 

 as for example: "Tuna has an 

 unpleasant smell." This was done 

 in order to minimize what is 

 called a "halo" or clustering 

 effect whereby a favorable 

 attitude toward a product tends 

 to make respondents attribute 

 all favorable characteristics 

 to the product ._7 



The product image phase of the study 

 revealed that canned tuna is considered 

 to be a convenient food, one that is not 

 too troublesome to prepare by more than 

 9 out of 10 homemakers. To a slightly 

 lesser extent, tuna is considered to have 

 a good flavor, a nice appearance, and to 

 be a food of high quality which is not 

 hard to make look good and which has many 

 uses. 



The image of canned tuna is quite 

 similar in all three cities except for 

 the items, "Does not leave a bad odor in 

 the refrigerator," "Is not expensive," 

 "Is only good if a well-knoi-jn brand," and 

 "Is used a great deal by Negroes." In 

 Boston as many as 72 percent of the re- 

 spondents felt that tuna did not leave a 

 bad odor in the refrigerator, but only 

 ii2 percent in Birmingham agreed with this. 

 Also in Boston 78 percent felt that canned 

 tuna is not expensive, but only hi percent 

 agreed in Birmingham. Again, 75 percent 

 of the Boston respondents agreed that tuna 

 was only good if it were a well-known 

 brand compared to only 56 percent in Bir- 

 mingham. Finally, 18 percent in Boston 

 thought that tuna was used a great deal 

 by Negroes, compared to lil percent in Bir- 

 mingham. The proportions for Detroit for 

 these items are approximately midway be- 

 tween those of Birmingham and Boston. 



Measuring the Motivational Difference 



The aim of motivational analysis is 

 to determine the characteristics which 

 have the greatest influence on the be- 

 havior of the respondent. The approach 



11 



