This month's Frame: how embodied experiences affect our decisions

A framework that helps us understand the role the body plays in how people distinguish between different things and make decisions.

How do people distinguish between different types of product or service? To design for and market to people successfully, we need a nuanced understanding of how people establish and recognise differences between things.

The current research approach fails to account for the role of the body in decision-making. It is often assumed that bodies are under the control of people’s minds, desires, emotions and driven by the needs users have on various occasions. This kind of view is limited and “asymmetrical”—it places less emphasis on the body than other factors such as the mind and desires. Our Frame proposes that embodied experiences are critical in how we learn to distinguish between similar products and services, particularly in categories where tiny details are the main points of difference.

What kind of value might we unlock if we adopt a “symmetrical” perspective instead? What might we gain if we consider decision-making neither rational nor irrational, and decision-making calculus neither purely quantitative or qualitative?

The framework

We can use ideas from Actor-Network theory to help us talk about embodied experience and unlock new ways of involving the body in the creation of distinction—and therefore value. Bruno Latour, along with Michele Callon, Madeleine Akrich and John Law, developed  Actor-Network Theory. They advocated for a “symmetrical approach” to research that gives agency to human and non-human agents. It’s an approach that reevaluates the role that tools and objects play in our interactions with, and understanding of, the world.

In his 2004 paper, “How to talk about the body? The normative dimension of Science Studies,” Bruno Latour gives the example of the training of “noses”—or specialist perfumers. During training sessions, “noses” use odour kits made of pure fragrances, which are organised according to the intensity of contrast between them. These kits play a crucial role in helping the “nose” learn to be affected by the different fragrances and to register and articulate differences between them. Without this network of material tools, the training sessions and the instructors, there would be no shared knowledge, vocabulary and no way of articulating how one scent differs from another. Eventually, “noses” learn to tell one fragrance from another, even when they’re mixed together. 

Latour suggests that the body shouldn’t be seen as a passive substance that hosts the mind which is having an experience, but as a dynamic interface that actively registers, articulates, measures and compares as it engages with worlds, environments and tools. The body learns to be affected—this doesn’t just mean that it’s perceptive and sensitive to a greater variety of stimuli—it has also become different and greater. Someone who is trained to detect odours and scents has also learned new ways of having a nose. 

Latour’s theory unlocks new ways to think about value in the context of bodies that learn to be affected.

Using the framework

1. Offer knowledge, learning and tools for measurement and comparison

A symmetrical approach to the body acknowledges that the body is part of networks of human and non-human agents, including tools and objects. This means that the embodied experience isn’t something personal and subjective. Instead, the embodied experience can be measured, compared and understood with the help of tools. 

The perfume website Fragrantica provides a variety of ways to help people learn about different scents. Users can compare perfumes in different ways and according to different criteria, such as longevity, sillage (the scent trail that a perfume leaves behind as it evaporates) as well as price. Recently, Fragrantica has added AI-generated review summaries of pros and cons. 

A tool such as Fragrantica plays an instrumental role in shaping the demand for niche perfumes as it helps the “community of users’ noses” to learn to be affected by different scents.

2. Help people register and articulate differences

An affected body can contrast and compare, and assign value, to discern one thing from another. On the other hand, an unaffected body doesn’t experience value and, in the words of Latour, is dead. In luxury, meaningful differences that are physically experienced as different from others, are key to justifying high price points. For example, consider how the influencer Tanner Leatherstein helps his followers to register differences in leather quality. 

Digital tools, too, can help people recognise differences that are meaningful to them. In fact, digital technology has a unique capability to translate one type of data into another and thus give people abilities to do new things. For example, Shazam helps people identify some sounds and translate them into songs they can add to their playlists. Pantone translates the colour spectrum into unique codes that can be used to create better visual experiences across products and industries. By announcing the Colour of the Year, Pantone also mobilises a range of industries such as design and beauty, to align on what a particular shade represents and how it might be registered by people’s bodies. The Colour of the Year 2024 is PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz, “whose all-embracing spirit enriches heart, mind, and body.”

With the rise of AI-powered apps and tools, there is an opportunity to help people register differences and nuances they would not have been able to otherwise—and to help them do new things with these newly acquired skills.

By adopting a symmetrical perspective, we can unlock a more profound understanding of how people interact with and assign value to products and services. Doing so compels us to reconsider the design of experiences, tools, and technologies, ensuring that they cater not just to the mind but also to the nuanced and powerful influences of the body. As we venture further into this exploration, the potential to innovate and truly connect with users in a meaningful way becomes not just an opportunity but a necessity.

Frames is a monthly newsletter that sheds light on the most important issues concerning business and technology.

Stripe Partners helps technology-led businesses invent better futures. To discuss how we can help you, get in touch.