Laddering: Unlocking the Potential of Consumer Behavior

Chapter 5

Confirming and Fine-Tuning Your Ladders

The only relevant test of validity of a hypothesis is a comparison of prediction with experience.

—Milton Friedman

WE MAY NOT consciously realize it, but we move through our days testing hypotheses that we believe to be true. We awake each morning to the hypothesis that the sun will be in the sky, that we will have air to breathe, and that there will be water when we turn on the faucet. This reliance on hypotheses is how we are fundamentally wired from the days when we had to survive as cavemen (and cavewomen). Our prior experience drives our belief of what will happen in the future. Therefore, it often takes a dramatic change in our experience to alter our hypothesis about the world around us.

Take, for example, the refrigerator in my kitchen. I had lived in my current home for almost 10 years when the filtered water built into the refrigerator door stopped working. I drink many glasses of water every day and cannot break myself from the habit of getting ice from the door and then attempting to get water from the neighboring compartment. My experience of getting water from the refrigerator door is so ingrained that my brain won’t give up the hypothesis of also going to the refrigerator for water.

This kind of internal wiring is part of why we have a problem with looking at the world around us in a deeper and more meaningful way. It is what limits marketers’ and product development groups’ thinking. They continue to use what has ...