{"id":1084,"slug":"psychology-brief-research-gaps-and-source-caveats","title":"May 2026 psychology brief — explicit research gaps and source-quality caveats","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["agency-methodology","psychology-aversion"],"reference_body":"**What this brief explicitly does not know:**\n\n- **Canadian-specific residential builder marketing-spend benchmarks.** CHBA's Pulse Survey appears to track member statistics but does not publish marketing-spend figures at a level verifiable from open sources. Most available figures are U.S. (NAHB) or aggregated industry-wide (Gartner, Duke/AMA CMO Survey). A custom CHBA member request would be the next step.\n- **Peer-reviewed Canadian academic research on the role of the GC owner's spouse in vendor decisions.** Widely observed in practice ([[gc-owner-spouse-as-primary-buyer-not-gatekeeper]]) and treated in family-business literature, but no Canadian construction-specific peer-reviewed study was located. Family Enterprise Foundation of Canada and BDC may have unpublished data.\n- **Causal direction of the coaching ↔ marketing-receptivity correlation.** Selection vs treatment vs joint adoption is currently impossible to distinguish from available data ([[coaching-marketing-correlation-causal-direction-unclear]]).\n- **Size of the \"agency-burned\" cohort relative to the never-engaged cohort.** Industry discourse implies most GCs have been burned. The Buildern 1.8–3.2% spend figure ([[buildern-2026-1-8-to-3-2pct-residential-builder-spend]]) implies most GCs have never invested enough to have been burned. The discrepancy is unresolved.\n- **Empirical evaluation of whether RenoMark membership predicts marketing engagement.** Correlation observable; no controlled study located.\n- **Province-level RenoMark counts beyond GTA (~300) and national (1,100+).** Ontario-specific counts may be available from OHBA or BILD but were not surfaced in open searches.\n- **Direct measurement of the loss-aversion ratio in trades-business owners specifically.** The 2:1 figure ([[kahneman-tversky-prospect-theory-loss-aversion-2to1]]) is the general-population estimate; may be higher or lower for this cohort.\n- **Reliable cross-tabulation of GC marketing engagement by generation (founder vs second-gen vs acquired).** Pattern observable in industry sources, not empirically isolated.\n\n**Source-quality caveats applied throughout the brief:**\n\n- Marketing-agency blogs (Hook Agency, Builder Funnel, Buildern, etc.) are treated as **evidence of the discourse the buyer is exposed to**, not as authoritative claims about contractor psychology. Their numbers (e.g., Buildern's 1.8–3.2%) are useful as **directional benchmarks**, not as peer-reviewed.\n- Breakthrough Academy member outcomes (−22 hrs/week, +69% net profit year one) are organization-self-reported and not independently audited ([[breakthrough-academy-coaching-self-reported-outcomes]]).\n- The Pioneer Craftsmen reference case ([[pioneer-craftsmen-kitchener-design-build-reference-case]]) is single-source (the firm's own published materials and GuildQuality reviews).\n- Forrester / Gartner B2B buying-committee figures (13 stakeholders, etc.) are not realistic at the $3M residential GC scale; the **underlying multi-stakeholder dynamic**, not the headline number, is the transferable insight ([[forrester-state-business-buying-2024-13-stakeholders]]).\n- All U.S. statistics (NAHB, FTC, Angi SEC filings, BLS) are explicitly **U.S.-jurisdictional**. Canadian-specific data are used where available (BuildForce, Statistics Canada, Job Bank, HCRA, Tarion, CHBA, BILD).\n\n**Confidence:** Verified (this is meta-documentation of the brief's own limits, not a claim about external reality).\n\n**For future psychology briefs:** Each new brief should declare its own gaps in the same shape, and link back to this one if the gap persists.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"research-brief-psychology-gc-marketing-aversion-may-2026","title":"Research brief: the psychology of marketing aversion among general contractor owners (May 2026 foundation)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[]},"created_at":"2026-05-24T23:24:06.411Z","updated_at":"2026-05-24T23:24:06.411Z"}