What it means
People often find it hard or uncomfortable to describe their own motives, especially when the subject is money, debt or buying decisions that might reveal vanity or worry. If you ask "Why did you buy this expensive watch?", the answer may be polished and self-justifying.
If you ask "Why do you think people buy expensive watches?", the respondent can describe the same feelings without feeling judged. The method is a type of projective technique, which means respondents project their own attitudes onto an imaginary person or a general group.
Researchers then read the answers as indirect evidence of what the respondent really believes. It is sometimes called the third-person technique.
Finance and marketing teams use it in surveys, focus groups and interviews. For example, a bank might ask, "Why do you think some people avoid checking their credit card balances?" to explore attitudes to debt.
The answers can reveal fear, embarrassment or habit in a way that a direct question might not. There are limits.
The answers describe what respondents believe about others, and the link to their own behaviour is an inference rather than a fact. Careful analysts treat the results as a clue to be tested with other evidence, such as transaction data or observed behaviour.
Because the method is flexible and cheap, it is a useful addition to a research toolkit. It works best alongside direct questions, so the two sets of answers can be compared.
A gap between what people say about themselves and what they say about others is often the most revealing finding. Good practice includes writing neutral questions, using a mix of open and closed formats and making clear to respondents that there are no right answers.
Researchers should also record how many respondents gave each type of answer, so that themes can be counted and not only quoted. Reports should state plainly that the findings describe perceptions of others, which keeps managers from over-reading the results.
In practice
Real-world examples.
Example
A retail bank wants to know why customers ignore its savings app. A researcher asks a group of customers, "Why might someone like you not use a savings app?" Respondents mention worries about security and a feeling that saving is too complicated, which they might not have admitted directly.
Example
A car dealer wants to understand why shoppers choose an expensive model. In interviews, buyers are asked what impression they think the car gives other people. The answers point to status and confidence as strong drivers, and the dealer adjusts its advertising to match.
Example
A financial planner runs a workshop on retirement saving. Instead of asking people about their own savings gaps, she asks why they think many people in their age group save too little. The discussion is open and honest, and she uses the themes to design her advice.
Case study
Seen in the real world.
Maple Street Credit Union is an illustrative, fictional lender that wanted to understand why members were reluctant to take small personal loans, even though the rates were low. A direct survey of 300 members produced bland answers such as "I do not need one".
The research manager redesigned the survey to include third-party questions, such as "Why do you think people your age hesitate to borrow?" The most common answers were embarrassment, fear of being judged and worry about losing control of spending. These were rarely given in the direct questions.
In this illustrative case, the credit union changed its marketing to stress privacy and flexible repayments, and the number of applications rose by about a fifth over the next year. The manager noted that the result was still an inference and tracked actual borrowing data to confirm that the new message was working. She also repeated the survey a year later to see whether attitudes had shifted, and she shared the method with the credit union's other departments.
Watch out
Common mistakes.
- Treating answers about other people as a precise measurement of the respondent's own behaviour.
- Using the technique alone, without direct questions or behavioural data to compare against.
- Writing vague third-party questions, such as "What do people think?", which produce answers too general to act on.
Questions
People also ask.
Why does the technique work?
People feel less exposed when describing others, so they speak more freely about sensitive motives. The respondent's own views usually show through in the way the imaginary person is described.
Is it the same as asking a third-party expert?
No, in this technique the respondents are ordinary people describing other people, not outside specialists giving an opinion.
Where is it used in finance?
In customer research on saving, borrowing, insurance and investing, where emotions often hide behind polite answers. It is also used in staff surveys on topics such as ethics and fraud, where people may be reluctant to describe their own behaviour.
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