Our Perspective on the Power of Understanding Both Right & Left Brain Thinking

You've probably heard expressions such as, "He thinks with his heart rather than with his head." We know we can't technically "think" with our heart. But, some people do tend to process information and base decisions more on emotion, whereas others tend to use more logical approaches to information-processing.

How is this possible?

Physiologically speaking, our brains are divided into two sides, or hemispheres, called the right brain and left brain. Each hemisphere is responsible for different functions and each processes information differently. For most folks, one hemisphere tends to dominate over the other. This does not mean though that the other half cannot be awakened. By getting our brains in balance, we are able to process using a "whole brain" perspective thereby reaching more balanced understanding. 

So, what do these right brain and left brain hemispheric differences look like when it comes to real-world behavior and information processing?  Here are just a few of the ways in which our different hemispheres fire up based on how we are processing and thinking. 

The Left Brain (a.k.a. The Logic Center)

• brain's press agent
• does mental gymnastics to rationalize reactions it doesn't understand
• interpreter that constructs theories to explain behavior (buy on emotion [right brain] then construct logic to rationalize it [left brain])
• speaking, calculating, writing, verbal
• logical
• sequential processing
• list maker
• planning
• rote memorization likely to work with context less important
• know the rules and work within them

The Right Brain (a.k.a. The Emotional Center)

• superior at copying drawings, recognizing faces, reading emotions, and expressing emotion
• perceptual tasks
• intuitive
• take the whole first and then drill down to the details
• global non-analytic thought
• multi-taking or non-sequential
• desires context & examples
• strives to see how things work when applied to better understand
• likely to try to change the environment or work outside of rules

So, why do we call ourselves Right Brain Discovery?

Our research approach taps into consumers' right brain. It allows us to get at the right brain motivations behind consumer behavior-- the emotional motivators. We take into account the bigger picture-- the full context which influences each individual consumer-- to understand their behavior in any given situation.

We know that many consumers will act on emotion in their purchase decisions and then later rationalize those decisions using logic. So, consumers are often right brain driven at the point-of-purchase, but then explain their own behavior using left brain strategies. As marketers, we need to understand not just the logical reasons why consumers make purchases and display the shopping habits they do. We also need to understand those more right brain, emotion-focused motivators of purchase decisions and shopping habits. Hence, we bring the right brain into the consumer discovery process.