Invisible Influence

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  Contents

  Introduction

  We make our own choices—right? . . . Why coming to class more makes students seem more attractive . . . How a couple of words change how we see people . . . When influence is invisible

  1. Monkey See, Monkey Do

  Why we trust others—even when they are wrong . . . When a Sprite is a Coke . . . How others provide information, and pressure . . . Why married people look alike . . . Ice cream and monkey brains . . . How to be a better negotiator . . . Explaining blockbusters . . . Why copycats get bigger tips . . . Avoiding groupthink

  2. A Horse of a Different Color

  Why successful athletes have older siblings . . . The drive for distinction . . . How ordering with others can ruin your meal . . . Yogi Berra was right . . . Independence with a side of cranberry sauce . . . Why other peoples’ kids look the same but yours are completely unique . . . Why Sports Illustrated sells similarity while Vogue deals in difference

  3. Not If They’re Doing It

  Why companies send celebrities free gifts—from their competitors . . . How choices communicate who we are . . . When conservatives like generous welfare policies and liberals like stringent ones . . . Why frogs lie . . . “Acting White” and minority achievement . . . The $300,000 watch that doesn’t tell time . . . Why expensive products don’t use logos . . . Why Louis Vuitton should encourage counterfeiting . . . Explaining fashion cycles . . . Shifting signals to help health

  4. Similar but Different

  Predicting the Color of the Year . . . Why hurricanes influence baby names . . . How similarity shapes success . . . What Chinese characters teach us about what will be popular next . . . Why familiarity leads to liking . . . Sex, chickens, and Calvin Coolidge . . . The Goldilocks Effect . . . Old and new at the same time . . . Engineering for optimal distinctiveness . . . Using a horse head to sell cars

  5. Come On Baby, Light My Fire

  What cockroaches can teach us about motivation . . . Why others make us faster runners but worse parallel parkers . . . Using peers to save energy . . . The importance of relative performance . . . Could losing be a good thing? . . . Why favorites are more likely to quit . . . Motivating employees, students, and others to work harder

  Conclusion: Putting Social Influence to Work

  Could where you live impact your health and well-being? . . . Choosing your influence

  Acknowledgments

  About Jonah Berger

  Notes

  Index

  To Jordan and Zoë

  * * *

  Introduction

  Think about a choice you made recently. Any choice. Which breakfast cereal to buy, movie to see, or place to have lunch. Or even a more important decision: which person to date, political candidate to support, or career to pursue.

  Why did you make that choice? Why did you pick the particular option you ended up choosing?

  Seems like an easy question. While various idiosyncratic reasons may come to mind, in general, they all point in the same direction: you. Your personal tastes and preferences. Your likes and dislikes. Which potential mate you found funny or attractive. Whether the candidate’s policy stance matches your own. The notion that our choices are driven by our own personal thoughts and opinions seems so obvious that it is not even worth mentioning.

  Except that it’s wrong.

  Without our realizing it, others have a huge influence on almost every aspect of life.1 People vote because others are voting, eat more when others are eating, and buy a new car because their neighbors have recently done the same. Social influence affects the products people buy, health plans they choose, grades they get in school, and careers they follow. It shapes whether people save for retirement, invest in the stock market, donate money, join a fraternity, save energy, or adopt new innovations. Social influence even affects whether people engage in criminal activity or are satisfied with their job. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all decisions are shaped by others. It’s hard to find a decision or behavior that isn’t affected by other people.

  In fact, looking across all domains of our lives, there is only one place we don’t seem to see social influence.

  Ourselves.

  * * *

  I started studying the science of social influence—the way others affect our behavior—by biking around Palo Alto, California, looking for BMWs.

  Palo Alto is one of the world’s most expensive places to live. Stock options and IPOs have fattened the pockets of many residents and have also pushed up everything from housing prices to private school tuition. Ferrari and Maserati have dealerships nearby; lunch at one of the high-end restaurants can run close to $200 per person.

  Looking for BMWs was like hunting for Easter eggs. There was no surefire way to know where to find them, so I relied on a little intuition and a lot of luck. I slowly biked up and down different streets, scanning cars for the telltale shape and logo. Then, at each corner, I would stop and try to guess which direction had the best chance of success. Dentist’s office to the left? Dentists tend to drive nice cars, so why not do a quick loop of the parking lot. High-end grocery store to the right? Worth a shot.

  Every time I found a BMW, I reached into my messenger bag, pulled out a piece of paper, and gingerly tucked it under one of the windshield wipers. These weren’t coupons for body shops or advertisements for auto detailing. We weren’t selling anything at all.

  Instead, Princeton professor Emily Pronin and I were interested in how different factors influenced car buying. Which factors people thought influenced their own car purchase decision and how much those same factors played a role in someone else’s BMW purchase.

  In addition to standard factors like price, gas mileage, and reliability, the survey also asked about more social influences. Did their friends’ opinions affect their decision? What about whether the car was associated with cool or high-status people?2

  Each respondent answered the set of questions twice: once for themselves, and once for another person they knew who also drove a BMW. How much was that other person’s BMW purchase influenced by things like price and gas mileage? Whether cool or high-status people drove something similar?3

  After biking around in circles most of the day, I had left surveys on more than a hundred BMWs. Each with a self-addressed envelope for people to mail their responses back.

  And then, I waited.

  * * *

  The first day the mailman couldn’t come fast enough. But when I opened the mailbox, all that was inside was disappointment. Just a bunch of random coupons and a furniture company catalog. No one had returned the survey.

  The next day my optimism was tempered with caution. I sauntered by the mailbox and peeked inside. Still nothing. Now I was starting to get worried. Had people ignored the survey? Maybe the envelopes had blown away?

  By the third day a feeling of dread accompanied the mail. If there were still no responses, I’d have to go out and find new BMWs (or we’d have to come up with a different approach). But finally, way in the back of the mailbox was the answer I’d been waiting for. One of the small, white envelopes that I had placed on a car windshield a couple days before.

  The next day there were a few more responses. And a bunch more the day after that. We were in business. We took the responses and compared people’s perceptions of themselves with their perceptions of others. What influenced their BMW purchase versus what
influenced someone else’s BMW purchase.

  Many things were relatively similar. Not surprisingly, people thought factors like price and gas mileage mattered a lot, and they were equally important for both themselves and others. Price had a big impact on their own BMW purchase, and they thought it had a similarly large impact on whether another person had bought a BMW as well.

  But when it came to assessing the impact of social influence, things changed. It wasn’t that people didn’t think social influence mattered. They did. They were keenly aware that car-buying decisions were affected by what friends thought and whether cool or high-status people drove the car. In fact, they readily acknowledged that social influence had a big impact on what cars people buy.

  Except when those “people” were themselves.

  When they considered someone else’s BMW purchase, the effect of social influence was obvious. They could easily recognize that someone’s tastes shifted based on what their friends thought or the pressure to fit in.

  But when it came to turn that same microscope on their own BMW purchase, poof! Social influence vanished. They saw no evidence of it. When they held up a mirror to their own actions, they didn’t think social influence had any effect.

  And it wasn’t just cars. Other situations show the same asymmetry. Whether buying clothes, voting on political issues, or driving courteously, people recognized that social influence had an impact.

  Except when it came to them. People could see social influence affecting others’ behavior, but not their own.

  One possible explanation is social desirability. Maybe people don’t think they’re influenced by others because being influenced is a bad thing. Society tells us to be ourselves and live above the influence—to avoid being a lemming and going with the herd. If being influenced is bad, maybe people don’t think they are swayed because they don’t want to see themselves in a negative light.

  But it isn’t that simple. Even when being influenced was a good thing, people still didn’t think it affected them.

  It’s polite to consider local customs, for example, when visiting a place you don’t know well. And when picking out clothes for a formal event, going rogue isn’t usually a positive thing. Yet, even in situations like these when it was good to be influenced, people still didn’t think they were affected.

  Because there is an even more subtle reason we don’t think social influence affects us. We can’t see it.

  ONLY YOU . . .

  You just started your junior year of high school, and to celebrate, your parents decide that it’s time for you to get a job. You’ve lived off them long enough, they say, and it’s time to make your own spending money. Just a part-time position that will get you out of the house for a few hours a couple times a week. It’ll build character and teach you the ways of the world.

  Having only babysat and mowed a few lawns, your résumé is not exactly sparkling, but you’re able to snag a part-time position bagging groceries at the local supermarket. Not the most exciting job, but it sure beats cleaning out the meat case.

  You’ve just begun to master the ins and outs of paper and plastic when you run into one of your new coworkers in the break room. You’ve seen her bagging over in lane seven for a couple weeks now and you can’t help but notice how pretty she is. She introduces herself and the two of you start talking. About your boss, your respective high schools, and the trick she learned to keep tomatoes from bruising.

  Next week you run into her a couple more times. And the week after that a couple more. You talk for even longer. Soon, you find yourself picking shifts based on when you know she’ll be there. You start whistling while you work, and eventually, you build up enough courage to ask her out.

  And two hundred and seven dinners, ninety-two long walks, three vacations, and one short-lived breakup later, you find yourself getting married to the only person you could ever see yourself spending the rest of your life with.

  * * *

  The idea of a soul mate has existed for thousands of years. In The Symposium, Plato wrote that humans originally had four legs, four arms, and a head made of two faces. They could walk equally well backward and forward, and so terrible was their might and strength that they threatened the very gods who were supposed to be ruling over them. Something had to be done.

  The gods discussed various solutions. Some wanted to annihilate the human race—wipe them out forever. But one of the gods, Zeus, had a more creative idea. Humans provided gods with various tributes and offerings, so why kill them off entirely? Instead, each human would be split in half. This would teach them a lesson. It would diminish humanity’s strength and punish humans for their pride.

  And so it went. Each human was divided down the middle. Like a tree trunk cut in two.

  Not surprisingly, these split humans were miserable. Even when their wounds healed, they cast about, longing for their other half. Forever searching for the piece that would make them whole.

  * * *

  A lot has changed since Plato’s time, but the notion of a one, true love for each of us has remained. Tinder swipes may have supplanted love letters and hooking up may have replaced elaborate courtships, but most people still believe that there is a Mr. or Ms. Right out there, waiting to be found. Like two halves of a circle, or two peas in a pod, someone, somewhere out there will complete you. Your missing puzzle piece, your perfect fit. R&B songs and romantic comedies reinforce this idea again and again. If you’ve been unlucky in love, don’t fret: you just haven’t met your soul mate yet.

  Scan the wedding section of a newspaper, or ask most married people how they met, and you’ll get a similar answer: From the moment I saw him, I just knew . . . There was a chemistry I’d never felt with anyone else . . . A spark went off and I could tell she was the right one for me. . . .

  Most people find any other possibility slightly upsetting. Want to make a happily married friend angry with you? Try suggesting that they might have been equally happy with someone else.

  Our partners may not be perfect, but they are ours. And we are 110 percent certain that it couldn’t have been anyone else.

  We are all princes with a glass slipper, searching for that one and only Cinderella whose foot will fit.

  * * *

  Look at how most Americans meet their future spouse, though, and you’ll notice something interesting. There are more than 320 million people in the United States. Drop the married ones and you are left with around 160 million. Prefer one gender more than another and you are left with around 80 million people that could be right for you.

  Some of those are the wrong age, support the wrong political party, or—heaven forbid—love polka music; but even once you filter out all of these mismatches, you are left with millions of people. A lot of folks who could potentially be Mr. or Ms. Right.

  Do this same exercise with the world population and there are hundreds of millions of people. Any of whom might be your soul mate.

  Look at where people end up meeting their future spouse, though, and it’s pretty narrowly concentrated. In fact, over a third of Americans meet their husband or wife at one of two places: work or school.4

  Now, that by itself isn’t surprising. People spend a lot of time at work and school, and it’s tough to fall in love with someone you never got the chance to meet.

  But step back for a moment and consider what that means. Sure, there might be only one right person for each of us. Out of hundreds of millions of people, just one soul mate. But what’s the chance that this person just happened to start bagging groceries at the same time we did? Can all of us be that lucky?

  * * *

  Professor Richard Moreland’s undergraduate personality psychology course at the University of Pittsburgh was like many courses you might have taken in college. It was held in a large, fan-shaped lecture hall with stadium seating. The space had close to two hundred seats, filled with mostly freshman and sophomores, with a few juniors and seniors mixed in. Around half the students were men, half w
ere women, and there was the usual array of jocks and geeks, slackers and go-getters.

  Psychology classes often offer extra credit for participating in academic research, and Professor Moreland’s course was no different. At the end of the semester, students were asked if they wanted to complete a short survey. Most said yes.

  The survey was simple. Students, both male and female, were shown photos of four women (labeled A, B, C, and D) and asked to answer a few questions about each. How attractive did they find each woman? Did they think they would enjoy spending time with her? Would they like to become friends with her?

  None of the four women were particularly distinctive. All looked like typical college students. They were similar in age, dressed casually, and looked like someone who could have been sitting in the next seat over all semester.

  Which, in fact, they had. Unbeknownst to them, the students in Professor Moreland’s course had been part of an elaborate experiment.

  Throughout the course of the semester, the women pictured in the survey had posed as students in the course. They arrived a few minutes before the lectures began, walked slowly down to the front of the room, and sat where they could be seen by most of their classmates. During the lectures, they sat quietly, listened, and took notes. When the lectures ended, they packed up their things and left the room with everyone else. Other than not being enrolled in the class, there was little that separated them from the rest of the students.

  There was one more important detail. Each woman attended a different number of class sessions. Professor Moreland’s course met forty times over the course of the semester. Woman A showed up to zero classes, Woman B showed up to five, Woman C showed up to ten, and Woman D showed up to fifteen.