ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the understanding of process is a necessary and desirable acquisition for a research practitioner or observer. In the trade, it has become lamentably commonplace to accept that a study will contain a proportion of ‘good’ groups coupled with a proportion of ‘bad’ ones. Acceptance of this desire by the group to be led by the moderator produces the most common form of ‘bad’ market research group – the dependent group. The group concentrates at first on establishing this idea of leader and followers as firmly as it can, concentrating on topics, waiting for prompts and using expressions that will support the omniscience of the moderator to the exclusion of all else. The moderator must be respond by being prepared to interact with their pre-prepared private material in public, otherwise he will quickly find himself involved in pairing with the protagonist watched over by the rest of the group.
