Reasons Why

Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote a review in the New Yorker of a book called 'Why'. All about the kinds of reasons people give for their actions. There's an interesting critique here of focus groups, where people often rely on 'convention' reasons to justify their actions and attitudes. In reality the reasons for our behaviour are far more complex. See Leo Burnett Planner's comment here.

In summary though, reason giving is dependent on our context and the reltationships and roles we are playing at the time we give the reason, not on some kind of totally rational argument - "Effective reason-giving, then, involves matching the kind of reason we give to the particular role that we happen to be playing at the time a reason is necessary".