If you’ve ever watched The Traitors, you’ll recognise how instinct and personal impressions shape people’s decisions. Players often trust those they like, assuming that warmth equals honesty. But in the game, as in research, liking is not the same as truth. This same psychological shortcuts often shows up in concept testing in healthcare market research, where stakeholders gravitate toward the concepts that feel good, familiar, or comfortable. Unfortunately however, this can push genuinely effective ideas out of the running. Popularity: A Traitor’s Best Disguise and a Research Risk In The Traitors, popularity acts as a shield. As the group shrinks, decisions rely more and more on how someone makes others feel. This is a textbook example of the Affect Heuristic, the mental shortcut in which emotional response is mistaken for evidence. The same bias emerges in concept testing. When respondents “like” a concept, decision‑makers often interpret this as a sign of future success. But a popular concept isn’t necessarily an effective one, especially in healthcare where behaviour change is complex, high‑stakes, and often uncomfortable. This Happens in Healthcare Concept Testing, Too During concept testing in healthcare market research, concepts that spark positive emotional reactions can often rise to the top. Clients naturally want to advance ideas that feel right or are described as “appealing” or “the nicest.” But this is where danger creeps in. Research consistently shows that liking is not a reliable predictor of future behaviour, especially when behaviour change is involved. A concept can be “most liked” because it maintains comfort, familiarity, or status quo… not because it is the best driver of meaningful action. In other words: Most Liked ≠ Most Effective And in healthcare, effectiveness is what truly matters. Why Liking Misleads Us in Concept Testing At least three key cognitive biases can be at work in concept testing and can distort the results. Familiarity Bias People gravitate toward what they know. Concepts that resemble or echo current practices, beliefs and choices feel more comfortable, easier, and therefore safer, even if they lack impact. Status Quo Bias We instinctively resist change. Concepts that challenge existing practice or behaviour can be unfairly penalised because they require more effort to process, or invite the audience to question their current behaviours, something that again, requires effort but also feels uncomfortable . Affect Heuristic If something feels good, we assume it is good. This emotional shortcut can overshadow functional assessment. These biases operate beneath the surface, often shaping preference without respondents, or clients, realising it. The Counterintuitive Twist: Effective Concepts Can Feel Uncomfortable In healthcare markets, behaviour change is rarely comfortable. Concepts that disrupt patterns, challenge thinking, or introduce friction may be less liked precisely because they demand cognitive effort and threaten to rock the otherwise, stable and rather comfortable prescribing boat. But this discomfort is often what sparks re‑evaluation and movement, critical factors for shifting entrenched clinical or patient behaviours. As P.T. Barnum famously suggested: Comfort can be the enemy of progress. In concept testing, the most pleasing concepts may not actually be the most effective catalysts for real-world behaviour change. The Danger of Prioritising the “Most Liked” Concept When teams rely purely on preference scores, they risk eliminating the concepts with true behavioural potential. It’s the same dynamic as the Faithfuls banishing one of their own because they “liked someone else more.” A “fan favourite” concept can still fail in the real world if it doesn’t meaningfully shift beliefs, motivations, or habits. That’s why concept testing in healthcare market research must look beyond surface-level liking and dig into the deeper behavioural mechanisms that drive decisions. So How Do You Identify Concepts That Actually Change Behaviour? At HRW, we don’t take ‘liking’ at face value. Instead, we use: Behavioural science frameworks Implicit diagnostic tools Decision-making mapping Bias identification Contextual testing grounded in real healthcare scenarios This approach reveals the concepts that create genuine internal conflict, the tension that precedes behavioural change. Drawing on these techniques and our team’s many years’ of collective behavioural science expertise, we can help you separate out the ‘best’ concept from the ‘most liked’, helping you drive the change you need to see. If you’re seeking evidence that separates the “true faithfuls” in your concept line-up from the merely popular ones, we can help. If you’d like to find insight that reveals the true faithfuls in your concept line up and identifies which ideas will actually shift behaviour, fill in the Contact form below or reach out to our experts at Shift@hrwhealthcare.com Apply Now!