Researching the Future 20/6/00 Market researchers are often asked - or expected - to predict the future, and it's not always easy... One of the industry's highest profile figures, Robert Worcester of MORI, recently talked on the subject for the Lifestyle Network - MrWeb presents an edited summary. The toughest job a researcher is asked to do is to research the future. Not only are survey researchers at the mercy of people's opinions and attitudes, but also the weather, the medical profession, the economy, the political scene, and a host of other indefinable factors. Robert Worcester's personal definition of survey research is 'Public opinion is the collective view of [a representative sample of] a defined population.' There are five factors that are measured with the tools of the trade: Behaviour. Knowledge. Opinions. Attitudes. Values. The first two are easy to define and understand. Behaviour is what we do, and knowledge is what we know (or think we know). The other three are certainly more difficult to define and understand, and certainly much less commonly agreed. Opinions, according to Worcester, are the ripples on the surface of the public's consciousness, shallow, and easily changed; attitudes: the currents below the surface, deeper and stronger; and values: the deep tides of public mood, slow to change, but powerful. What surveys cannot generally predict well are likely future actions of the public and especially the future behaviour of individuals. They are better at telling us what, rather than why. The pace of change, corporate, product, political and consumer, is accelerating. MORI's work with the Sociovision consortium of research companies across Europe is designed to research the future. Sociovision has uncovered a number of 'cross-cultural convergences' to be considered for the years ahead: A growing gap between institutions and people. A move from self-centredness to autonomy. A flow from ideology to the need for meaning. A trend from an organised social structure to a network culture. A current from feminism to feminisation of society. A drift from rational to polysensorial. Going from saving time to savouring time. Going from pleasure-seeking to parallel crude and discerning hedonism. Going from 'ecology' to daily environmental friendliness. But there is a growing sense that daily life has become too stressful and that security is undermined. In the application of Maslow's 'Hierarchy of Human Needs', sustenance is assured, but security is threatened. Esteem is under attack, and self-actualisation comes hard. Crude hedonism is on the rise; more drugs, and more anti-social behaviour; too many are termed the 'underwolves', defined as the underdog who bites back. The last Socioconsult wave found that 85% of British respondents have modified their lifestyle so that they live according to what is important to them, and that 74% avow that in future, they would like to enjoy life more consciously (?!). How these attitudes are affecting their behaviour is critical for research into the future. The aim at MORI is to marry these attitudes with demographics as well. For instance, in the industrialised West at present there are three people in work to support one pensioner: by 2030 this ratio will fall to 3:2. It will take between 9% and 16% of the GDP in these countries to support today's pension promises, never mind the increased cost of health care and housing that will be required. At present, pensioners represent one in five of the adult population, in two decades this will be one in four. The typical retired household occupant in 20 years will be a lone woman. All of this will result in resentments building up: Young against old. Poor against rich. Rural against urban. Scientists against the People. Producers against consumers. The People against the Institutions. Central government against local government. Everybody against big business. Socioconsult, found in its most recent study that there are more exacting expectations for all aspects of service performance delivery as well as lower tolerance for product failure/shortcomings, and consequent hassle implications for workers in service industries.