“Just the Facts, Ma’am”: The Purposeful Separation of People and Performance
Introduction
In today’s corporate environment, data drives decision-making. Yet, the use of selective data often separates individuals from their true performance, enabling companies to shape narratives that align with their ideals. By focusing on curated data sets and excluding psychographic and individual insights, organizations maintain "business as usual" while avoiding challenges to their established norms.
Companies Keep "Business as Usual" by Removing Psychographics
Psychographics, which delve into individuals' attitudes, values, personalities, and lifestyles, offer rich insights into human behavior. However, many companies avoid leveraging psychographics in their analysis, citing reasons such as complexity or resource constraints. The real motivation, however, often lies in the potential disruption these insights could bring to entrenched practices and power dynamics.
By removing psychographics from their data sets:
They simplify narratives: Without accounting for personal values or attitudes, companies can present decisions as objective and performance-driven.
They limit accountability: Ignoring psychographic data reduces the chance of uncovering biases or practices that conflict with stated values.
They reinforce ideals: Companies can promote conformity and suppress dissent by focusing solely on metrics that support existing ideals.
Demographic Data Erases Individuals Within Groups
Demographics provide broad categorizations based on characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, or income. Information like this can bring forward communities as a whole, but instead, it is often used to reinforce outdated beliefs and company or government expected outcomes.
While useful for identifying trends, the Demographics only approach often fails to acknowledge the individuality of people within these categories. By focusing exclusively on demographics:
Nuances are lost: Group averages mask individual outliers whose performance or behavior might challenge assumptions.
Stereotypes are reinforced: Decisions based on demographic patterns risk perpetuating biases and systemic inequities.
Empathy is diminished: Reducing people to demographic labels dehumanizes the workforce and undermines efforts to build inclusive workplaces.
How Selective Data Gets Processed and Presented
Selective data processing involves filtering information to highlight favorable narratives while omitting inconvenient truths. This process typically unfolds in several stages:
Data Selection: Companies prioritize metrics that align with their strategic goals or values, often excluding data that contradicts these aims.
Aggregation and Simplification: Raw data is aggregated into broad categories, obscuring individual contributions and complexities.
Narrative Construction: Insights are framed in ways that support pre-existing ideals or justify specific actions.
Presentation: Data is visually represented through charts, reports, or dashboards, with emphasis placed on elements that bolster the intended message.
By controlling the flow and framing of data, organizations ensure that their desired image and objectives remain intact, regardless of the underlying realities.
Conclusion
The purposeful separation of people and performance through selective data practices has significant implications for organizational culture and decision-making. By sidelining psychographics and relying heavily on demographic data, companies erase individuality and perpetuate conformity. Understanding these practices is the first step toward advocating for more transparent, inclusive, and human-centered approaches to data analysis. Only then can organizations truly align their actions with their values.
Supporting documentation:
1. Companies Maintain "Business as Usual" by Removing Psychographics
A study published in the Journal of Marketing Research critically reviews the status of psychographic research, providing insights into its applications and limitations.
2. Demographic Data Erases Individuals Within Groups
Research published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review discusses biases and inaccuracies in demographic perception, highlighting how reliance on demographic data can lead to misrepresentations of individual identities. citeturn0search13
3. How Selective Data Gets Processed and Presented
An article in the International Journal of Population Data Science addresses common myths and misconceptions about population data, shedding light on how selective data processing can influence outcomes. citeturn0search9
References:
Wells, W. D. (1975). Psychographics: A Critical Review. Journal of Marketing Research, 12(2), 196–213. Read the article
Herdağdelen, A., & Tan, M. (2018). Bias and ignorance in demographic perception. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25(4), 1303–1311. Read the article
Harron, K., Dibben, C., Boyd, A., Hjern, A., Azimaee, M., Barreto, M. L., & Goldstein, H. (2017). Thirty-three myths and misconceptions about population data. International Journal of Population Data Science, 2(1). Read the article
Keywords: selective data practices, psychographics in corporate decisions, limitations of demographic data,