The motivational researcher is accepting, nonthreatening, and supportive. The emotional empathy between motivational researcher and respondent is the single most important determinant of an effective interview. The motivational researcher relies heavily upon nondirective interviewing techniques. Her goal is to get the respondent to talk, and keep talking. The researcher tends to introduce general topics, rather than ask direct questions.
Projective techniques can play an important role in motivational research.
The motivational researcher often asks the respondent to tell a story, play a role, draw a picture, complete a sentence, or associate words with a stimulus. Photographs, product samples, packages, and advertisements can also be used as stimuli to evoke additional feelings, imagery and comment. Each interview is tape-recorded and transcribed. A typical motivational study, consisting of 30 to 50 depth interviews, yields 1000 to 2000 pages of typed verbatim dialogue. These notes become a road map to help the researcher understand and interpret the verbatim transcript of the interview.