Semiometry

Semiometry determines the profile of people in terms of values to which they adhere or conversely reject. It is an approach to research that allows users to tap directly into the subconscious minds of brand users to discover just what it is that consumers really want, as opposed to what they claim they want. It allows to reveal or to compare the values and emotions of persons or groups of persons.

The semiometrical approach is an indirect psycho-graphical measurement procedure, developed by the French psychologist Steiner, which is based on the assumption that words can be used as indicators for the measurement of fundamental value concepts.

For this, a carefully chosen set -stable, global, subjective- of 210 sensitive words is presented to the respondents who are asked to score them on a scale from very unpleasant (-3) to very pleasant (+3).

The starting point is that words not only have an objective but also a subjective sense. This subjective sense includes the emotions that result from what people have experienced. The relation of an individual in reference to a word (in the meaning of “gives a pleasant feeling” / “gives an unpleasant feeling”) depends on the values the individual stands for. This emotional, affective, subjective meaning is a standard to a better comprehension of the profile of the values of different groups.

All words are, on the basis of the average distance between the scores in the universe, plotted on a map. This map has two axes:

Example: Semiometric mapping men vs. women: