What addiction can teach us about intimacy and sensitivity in research
As a qual research company serving clients across categories, themes emerge in unexpected and surprising places. Seeing emerging events and cultures that define what it means to be human in today’s tech and social media-rich world makes our work inspiring and humbling. The sense of discovery of themes and trends fuels more nuanced understandings of the lives of participants across the studies we conduct. In this series, we share some of the most exciting trends we’re seeing, which we hope will inspire you, too.
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, but connection.” – Gabor Maté
Consumer research studies rarely focus solely on addiction. Yet, addiction comes up in qual research across categories – it’s a subject many are desperate to talk about, rooted either in their struggles with addiction or the struggles of those they love most.
We’ve done studies where the emergence of addiction as a topic is less surprising – in research for online gambling brands or alcohol brands, for instance. In these, people talk openly about their damaging desire to gamble or drink alcohol, the thrill and relief - the surge in dopamine - that it brings. They recognize their problem and wrestle in their responses on their journey to healing, their struggles in navigating their addiction alone, and even admitting they have a problem.
But addiction also comes up in less obvious places. In a study we did on the concept of belonging, we had people talk about the connection they feel with others who struggle with addiction when they use substances (like drugs and alcohol). But we also hear about the simultaneous feelings of alienation they feel from themselves and others in falling into the spiral of substance use. In a study on the experience of “deep enduring love”, we heard stories not just of losing this sense of love in their lives due to their addictive behaviors but also the loss of the meaning of love they have for themselves, or the feeling that they’ve never truly found a way to love themselves throughout their lives, and thus are lost in addiction in its absence.
Gabor Mate, in his groundbreaking work on addiction, trauma, and healing, says that most addiction is rooted in trauma, alienation, a loss of connection, or the experience of never feeling like we’ve had a connection in the first place. As researchers, we are, of course, not therapists – nor should we try to be. Most of us are not qualified to take on this role.
In traditional research settings – focus groups, surveys, even one-on-one interviews –social pressures, judgment, and self-consciousness can get in the way of honesty. But in more private, carefully constructed spaces, the barriers begin to fall away. A chat-based exchange, for example, removes the performative nature of in-person conversations, allowing participants to be more reflective, raw, and unfiltered. The anonymity of text creates a sense of psychological safety – respondents aren’t just giving us answers; they’re giving us confessions.
The emergence of addiction as an unexpected topic in studies across categories has prompted a need for greater sensitivity in both question creation and analysis. What does it mean to create an opening for people to express the shadowy depths of their hearts and minds? What does it mean to hold these truths with respect and care in how we share these stories that they share, trustingly, with us?
As qualitative researchers, we are inherently driven by a deep desire for genuine human connection. We see the innate value and meaning in connecting with others at a more fundamental level, in understanding every facet of what it means to be human. We are naturally curious, and the most powerful form of curiosity is one rooted in empathy. Can the way we do research be healing to others, and also, perhaps, to ourselves, as it reverberates with our own experiences, our hunger for connection, and our desire to find greater meaning in the research we do?
If the opposite of addiction is connection, research that’s crafted with sensitivity and empathy in mind can do this kind of connective work. People share because they want their stories to be told, and sometimes they don’t have the space to share them in their everyday lives. But they speak of wanting others to know their experience, not only to empathize and work toward healing, but to let others know they’re not alone.
When we build research spaces that foster intimacy and trust, we don’t just get surface-level consumer behaviors; we tap into the raw, unfiltered truths of what it means to be human.
