Invisible Influence

by Jonah Berger

  John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton also often do well. These presidents did well in public opinion polls, even if they don’t rank as highly among presidential scholars.

  The bottom of the list often includes names like Warren G. Harding and James Buchanan. Harding appointed campaign contributors and allies to prominent political positions that they milked for personal gain. Buchanan did little to impede the spread of slavery or the growing unrest that eventually became the Confederacy.

  Between the best and the worst are names that have faded over time. Presidents that have not been completely forgotten, but had neither the positive impact of a Lincoln nor the negative scandals of a Nixon to remain at the top of public consciousness.

  One such president was Calvin Coolidge.

  Born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, on July 4, 1872, Coolidge is the only president to be born on Independence Day. A lawyer by trade, he worked his way through Massachusetts state politics, becoming a state legislator and eventually governor. He was elected vice president in 1920 and became president after the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923.

  Known as a small-government conservative, Coolidge restored confidence in the presidency after Harding’s scandals. Still, he never had the influence of some of the men that preceded or followed him. He said little—he was known as “Silent Cal”—and his legacy is divided between people who favored his reductions in government programs and opponents who thought government should play a more active role in regulating and directing the economy.

  Though his term in office may not have been that memorable, Coolidge’s name is forever linked to a fundamental aspect of human behavior. Legend has it that the president and his wife, Grace, once visited a government farm. As much as Calvin Coolidge was shy, Grace was outgoing, and was a popular hostess at the White House.

  After arriving at the farm, the two went on separate tours of the facility. When Mrs. Coolidge passed a set of pens housing chickens, she stopped to ask the person in charge how frequently the rooster copulated. “Dozens of times a day,” the man responded.

  “Please tell that to the President,” Mrs. Coolidge requested.

  Later that day, Mr. Coolidge himself walked by the pens. He was informed about the roosters’ behavior as well as his wife’s comment.

  “Same hen every time?” the president asked the keeper.

  “Oh, no, Mr. President, a different one each time.”

  The president thought to himself for a moment and nodded. “Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.”7

  * * *

  Variety, the saying goes, is the spice of life. If we just liked what was familiar, there would be no reason not to pick the same thing again and again. Nothing should be more familiar than doing what we did before. Eating the same meal for lunch, wearing the same clothes to work, and going to the same place for vacation.

  Decisions would be easy because there would often be no decisions at all. We’d just do what we’ve done before.

  But while picking the same thing over and over would make life easy, it’s easy to see that most people would hate it.

  While familiarity is good, people also have a competing drive for novelty.8 Humans have an innate preference for stimulation: what’s fresh, original, or unexperienced.

  Sure, eating the same ham-and-cheese sandwich every day is safe and familiar, but most people relish the opportunity to occasionally try something new. To branch out and experience something different. Ham and cheese is good, but how about a little mustard? Or a different type of bread? Actually, while we’re at it, the new wrap place that opened up down the block looks intriguing, why not check it out? Who knows, hummus and sprouts might be worth a try.

  Trying new things allows us to acquire useful information. You might think strawberry is your favorite flavor of ice cream, but if you’ve never tried anything else, it’s hard to know for sure.

  So, once in a while we poke our heads out of our tentative turtle shells and try something different. We get chocolate, pistachio, or even something wild like tutti-frutti or bacon-flavored ice cream.

  Will we like bacon better than strawberry? Probably not. But by trying new flavors we learn something about our preferences. Bacon might not tantalize our taste buds, but we might like pistachio better than strawberry, and without trying something new we never would have known.

  Novelty has a host of benefits.9 Doing new activities once in a while (say, taking a pottery class or going to a museum) boosts life satisfaction and doing novel activities with a relationship partner makes people more satisfied in their relationship. Novel news articles are more likely to garner attention, and changes to the workplace tend to increase productivity.

  One of the most studied aspects of novelty, though, is the so-called Coolidge effect, named after the experience the president and his wife had at the farm.10

  As anyone who has ever had hamsters can attest, the little guys love to mate. Some hamsters start reproducing as young as four to five weeks old, and can have several litters a year.

  Hamsters will even mate multiple times in one sitting. Some males will mate with the same female five or even ten times in a row. Mating attempts will continue until the male is exhausted and no longer interested in mating further. The female might poke and prod the male, but he’s done.

  Researchers, though, wondered whether animals’ drive for novelty would be enough to overcome this apparent exhaustion.11 The male hamster seems sated, uninterested in further action. But what would happen if a new female is introduced?

  Sure enough, while the male seemed exhausted, a new potential sexual partner was enough to perk him back up. When a novel female appeared, the male’s sexual interest was reignited.

  This same pattern has been observed in a number of mammals. Rats, cattle, even voles, show the same sexual behavior. Some female animals show similar effects, albeit less strong. Just like the rooster who copulated multiple times a day when different hens were introduced, for the hamster, novelty was the spice of love.

  So which is it? Do people like familiar things or do they like novel ones?

  THE GOLDILOCKS EFFECT

  Think about the first time you experience something new. Imagine you’ve come home from a business trip and you walk into the living room to find that your spouse bought a new piece of furniture. “It was time for a change, honey, and this ottoman was on sale, so I snapped it up.”

  Or you walk into the bathroom to find that all the old towels have been swapped out for new ones. “The old grey ones were getting so ratty, so I got us some great plush turquoise replacements. Don’t they look great?”

  How would you feel the moment you saw the towels? The first few milliseconds they entered your field of view?

  Your first reaction would probably be a slightly aversive surprise. You liked the old towels, and while they were getting a little frayed at the edges, these new towels are so . . . well, new. They stand out like a misplayed note on the clarinet. The new towels make the bathroom feel weird and foreign, a different place from what you are used to. Like you ended up in the neighbors’ bathroom rather than your own.

  Novelty, at least at first, often evokes a mildly negative reaction. Because they are new, novel things require additional processing and attention. We have to figure out whether they are okay, whether they are safe. Our curiosity is piqued, but we also get a little anxious. Novelty can be scary. Even if the new thing is just a couple of turquoise towels.

  Will they work as well as the old ones? Will they be as cozy? Until we’ve had the chance to use them a couple of times, we’re just not sure.

  Through repeated exposure, however, things that were once novel start to become more familiar. We use the new towels a couple times and slowly we start to like them. They’re just as comfy as the old towels and they have a nice way of brightening up the bathroom on a dreary day.

  The towels are no longer alien, they’ve become part of our routine. After a couple weeks we don’t even notice them anym
ore.

  Too many exposures to the same thing, though, and we start to get bored. The towels start to look dull, the same recipe gets tiresome, and the movie is no longer engaging the third time we watch it. What was once positively familiar becomes humdrum and monotonous.

  The more complex the stimulus, the less likely the habituation. So while we may tire of hearing the same song or eating the same cereal relatively quickly, we’re less likely to get bored of our spouse or a restaurant. The latter are more varied experiences that often change each time we experience them. While the song stays relatively the same, our spouse says different things and looks different each time we see them, so it doesn’t feel like we’re experiencing the same thing each time. As a result, while relatively simple things may have quick appeal but soon become boring, relatively complex things may take longer to warm to, but also have a longer-lasting appeal.

  How concentrated the interactions are also matters. Hearing the same song ten times in a row gets quite tedious, but hear it once a week over ten weeks and it doesn’t get as tiresome. The more time there is between interactions, the more novel the experience seems, and the more we like it.

  Personal control is also important. Most things never reach the point where they become tiresome because people choose to stop consuming them before then. If we find ourselves starting to get bored of a certain recipe, we stop making it for a while. If we tire of a restaurant, we go someplace else for a few months until we feel like going again. Thus we never get to the point where our positive feelings start to turn negative.

  * * *

  In some ways, our emotional reactions are a bit like Goldilocks from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In the children’s tale, each of the bears has its own preference for bedding and food. One bear has a firm bed, one bear has a soft bed, and one has a bed somewhere in the middle. One bear likes its porridge hot, one likes it cold, and one likes it somewhere in between.

  Goldilocks tries each, but is always turned off by the extremes. The firm bed is too firm and the soft bed too soft. The hot porridge too hot and the cold porridge too cold. But the middle bed and the middle porridge? Well, those are just right.

  Affective reactions often follow a similar Goldilocks effect, or inverted-U-shape trajectory. When something is new, we initially feel slightly negatively (or neutral). Then, after repeated exposure, things become more familiar and we start to feel more positively. But eventually, after too many exposures, boredom kicks in and liking declines.12

  Too novel and it’s unfamiliar. Too familiar and it’s boring. But in between and it’s just right.

  When British psychologists examined how much people liked different last names, for example, they found just this pattern.13 Students were asked to consider sixty different surnames, randomly selected from the telephone directory. Half the students rated how much they liked the different last names, while the other half rated how familiar the names were.

  Very unfamiliar names, such as Baskin, Nall, and Bodle, weren’t liked that much. At the other end of the spectrum, highly familiar names such as Smith and Brown were also disliked. So what did people like?

  Turns out the names people liked the most were the ones that fell in the middle. Names like Shelley or Cassell that were moderately familiar (at least to Brits). Right between unfamiliar and too familiar was just right.

  Familiarity and novelty can also be mixed in the same item. Some elements of a song (a chord progression or singer’s voice) may be familiar, while others (the lyrics) are new. A new recipe for turkey chili takes something you’ve made many times before (chili) and puts a novel spin on it. Just like similar sounding names, these variations on a theme increase liking.

  Moderately discrepant things also tend to garner more attention.14 Take an infant who has just learned a set of expectations about what a dog looks like. How many legs a dog has, that it has fur, and a range of typical sizes.

  Seeing a dog picture they’ve seen before is less interesting because it is wholly familiar, and seeing something that looks completely different from a dog (a whale, for example) should be so unfamiliar as to be confusing and incomprehensible. But something that is moderately discrepant from their existing knowledge or expectations (a hairless dog) should be particularly intriguing because it doesn’t fit with their existing notion of what a dog should be. It’s similar enough to be comprehensible, but different enough to evoke interest and exploration.

  The right blend of familiarity and novelty also drives what becomes popular. Classical music is more likely to be popular if the transitions between notes are somewhat similar to classical music in general, but different enough from music composed at that time.15 High-impact scientific research is grounded in prior work with a sprinkling of unusual combinations of prior ideas.16 And hit fashion styles, such as skinny jeans, often take something we all know well (jeans) and add novelty (a new cut).

  Things that catch on, then, whether in music, fashion, or any other domain, often hit this Goldilocks range. Similar enough to what is already out there to evoke the warm glow of familiarity, but novel enough to seem new and not just derivative of what came before. Similarity shapes popularity because it makes novel things feel familiar.III

  Returning to hurricanes and baby names, similar names have the benefit of being new and old at the same time. If Karen is a popular baby name this year, people may be all Karened out. The name sounds too familiar, and no longer sounds unique, so next year’s parents will move on to something else.

  But as they pick amongst the other names out there, that Karen was popular may sway their choice. Similar names, like Katy or Darren, may sound better, even if the parents that pick them don’t realize why.

  OPTIMALLY DISTINCT

  Sam, a junior at Princeton University, had just finished her political science homework, and was headed to dinner when she came across the table set out in front of the eating club. Someone was giving people Starbucks gift cards in exchange for filling out a quick survey. It seemed easy enough, and she had a couple minutes before her friends were supposed to show up for dinner, so she dove right in.

  The first few questions were simple demographic information. Year in school, age, gender, and so on. The next question asked: Which of the following best describes your fashion style? Preppy, trendy, athletic, classic, edgy/rock, bohemian, indie/hipster, punk/skater, or other.

  Sam hated being boxed in, and even after thinking about it for a minute, none of the categories seemed right. She checked the “other” box and wrote in “eclectic!”

  * * *

  One crisp fall evening a few years ago, I was taking the dog for a walk when I noticed two guys about a block in front of me. It was a Friday night, so there were lots of people going out to dinner, or grabbing drinks with friends, but these two guys stood out.

  They had medium builds, and one was a few inches taller than the other, but they grabbed my attention because of what they were wearing. In addition to jeans, and some normal-looking sneakers, both were wearing shirts with horizontal brown stripes. Shirts reminiscent of old-fashioned prison garb (albeit in brown) or what you might look for in a Where’s Waldo? book.

  It’s not unusual to see groups of friends dressing similarly. On a Friday night, one crew of guys might be wearing untucked button-downs or polo shirts while another group will wear V-neck T-shirts and jeans. One group of girls might be blousy tops and heels, while another will wear Ugg boots and hooded sweatshirts.

  But while button-down shirts or Ugg boots are common, brown horizontally striped tops are a bit more rare. And it wasn’t as if they were wearing the exact same thing. One guy had on a polo shirt and one had on a sweatshirt. But both had horizontal brown stripes, with either white or grey between them. Weird.

  Were they on the way to some striped theme party I hadn’t been invited to? Or might their fashion faux pas tell us something deeper about how social influence shapes behavior?

  Professors Cindy Chan, Leaf Van Boven, and I decided to ta
ke a trip to Princeton University to find out.17

  * * *

  In 1853, Princeton University’s trustees and faculty voted to ban fraternities and secret societies. The university was wary of how these groups divided the student body (in this pre–Civil War time period, groups often formed around opposing sides) and worried about the cliquishness they developed.

  The ban in itself would not have been an issue, but combined with the lack of campus dining options, students were forced to begin to take their meals in boardinghouses around town. Options flourished. By 1876 there were over twenty such places that catered to the students. They became known as “eating clubs.”

  To this day, eating clubs are the center of social life at Princeton. While fraternities were reinstated in the 1980s, the few that exist remain unhoused, and only a small percentage of the students participate.

  Instead, social life revolves around the eating clubs. Not only do most upperclassmen take their meals in the eating clubs, but many also go there to study, hang out, and play sports. Thursday and Saturday nights most of the eating clubs host parties, and different clubs have yearly events or concerts that cater to their members.

  Given how important these clubs are, my colleagues and I wondered if which club people belonged to would influence how they dressed. Just like the two friends wearing brown-striped shirts, would students from the same club all dress in a “uniform” of sorts? And would these uniforms be distinct enough that observers could tell which club someone belonged to based on the clothes they was wearing?

  We picked two popular eating clubs. The first was the Cottage Club. Founded in 1886, the Cottage Club (sometimes known as the University Cottage Club) is the second-oldest eating club at Princeton and one of the most traditional. Members are chosen through a selective interview process complete with secret deliberations. The building was designed by a world-renowned architect and set up to mimic an Italian villa with paneling modeled after a palace of Henry VIII. Yearly photos of the club look a bit like an ad for J.Crew or Vineyard Vines, replete with men in khaki shorts and loafers and women in pastels and sandals.