Family Matters: Emotional Truths and the Dinner Hour

Part 1 of a 6-part series exploring Tyson Foods’ consumer research findings on the emotional significance of family dinners.

Memories are made in the kitchen, a central backdrop to everything from parties and gatherings to everyday family life. So it’s no wonder emotional experiences associated with family dinners leave lasting impressions on parents and children alike, impacting their long-term attitudes and behavior.

Tyson Foods, Springdale, Ark., and Syntegrate Consulting, a New York City-based strategic consulting firm, have applied a unique research methodology based on “storytelling” to evoke parents’ and children’s non-conscious emotional truths related to family dinner.

WHAT'S AN EMOTIONAL TRIGGER? An emotional trigger, also known as an emotional truth, is a combination of beliefs and attitudes that trigger behaviors.

Instead of traditional qualitative shopper research that uses a predetermined list of straightforward questions in a predetermined order, facilitated storytelling asks people with close connections to share with each other stories about past experiences. In this case, talking points centered on family dinners and participants’ memories associated with them.

“What the telling of the story does is get respondents in the right emotional state so we can get right to those non-conscious emotional truths that in the end are the real drivers of everything we, as humans, do,” explained Christopher Brace, founder and CEO of Syntegrate Consulting. “You can’t ask someone a direct question and expect to get a non-conscious emotional truth. Our brains don’t work that way. We reveal non-conscious truths through the stories we tell, which is why we use storytelling.”

Parents’ world views, largely defined by their values, beliefs and attitudes, determine behaviors such as shopping and dinnertime habits. Emotional triggers stemming from their views on family bonding, protecting/preparing kids, teaching life lessons and individuality, and achievement ultimately determine how often a family eats together around the table, Tyson Foods’ study found.

THE IMPORTANCE OF WORLD VIEWS

Everyone has a worldview, or a lens through which he or she experiences life. That worldview is composed of the following:

• Values: Any principles representative of someone’s moral character, such as honesty, trust, respect and compassion.
• Beliefs: The acceptance of something as true about one’s self, others or the world, whether true or not. Beliefs reside in the non-conscious part of the brain.
• Attitudes: Judgments regarding any set of circumstances.
• Behaviors: The ways in which one acts. Behavior is driven by one’s attitudes.

Family dinners give parents an opportunity to check in with their kids, ask them questions, problem solve and show them they care. The dinner table is also a place where parents’ values and beliefs can be expressed and passed on to their children.

As parents recalled their childhood memories of family dinners through storytelling, many of them discovered a new appreciation of what family dinners provide, while others started to recognize the need to place greater emphasis on sitting around the dinner table.

By acquiring a deeper understanding of family dynamics and dinnertime behavior through storytelling, Tyson Foods noted that retailers can begin to shift from selling “prepared foods” to offering “dinnertime experiences.” Moreover, this awareness can help retailers determine when, how and where to connect with families outside the store, driving more traffic to their deli counters. 

“If you look at delis now, all they do is talk about price and food. But we know that’s not really what’s driving the choice mom and dad are making about dinner,” said Brace. “What drives their choices is something more emotional. They are driven by emotional truths – the emotional benefits of sitting around the dinner table. If we can reinforce to mom the emotional benefits of having dinner tonight with her family, that will resonate with her because it’s a truth she carries with her everywhere she goes.”

PARENTS’ BELIEFS ON BUILDING A STRONG FAMILY BOND

• I believe I’m responsible for building a strong family unit.
• I believe the world is a different place than when I was a kid.
• I believe I’m responsible for the wellbeing of my children.
• I am responsible for providing my kids with a happy childhood.

PARENTS’ BELIEFS ON PROTECTING AND PREPARING CHILDREN

• I am responsible for helping my kids succeed in life.
• I must teach my kids life lessons.
• The world is rapidly changing.

Next month’s look at the emotional significance of family dinners will focus on the kids’ point of view.