Invisible Influence

by Jonah Berger

  But even though others shape almost everything we do, we are often unaware that this impact occurs. We can all point to examples of others falling prey to social influence, but it’s often much harder to recognize that influence on ourselves.

  * * *

  Early in the book, we read about an experiment involving college students’ judgments of physical attractiveness. Psychologist Richard Moreland found that students who came to class more often were seen as more attractive. Seeing someone more often made people like them more.

  Years earlier, when Moreland was in college, he worked at the local grocery store called Joyce’s in Boulder, Colorado, just like the imaginary couple we met in the introduction. A young girl worked there at the same time, and after seeing her a few times, Moreland realized that he found her quite cute. They talked, then dated, and eventually this coworker became his wife.

  The store was actually a hotbed of romance. Almost all the employees ended up marrying each other. Between school and work, people didn’t have much time to meet anyone else, so they ended up loving the one they were with.

  Did seeing this woman more often make Moreland like her more, and eventually marry her as a result?

  As each of us would do when asked such a question, Moreland would say no. We prefer to think that we were attracted to our partner because they are charming or have a nice smile, not because we happened to have the same work schedules.

  Just as with the products we buy and the career we choose, we believe that we consciously choose our spouse and our friends. That we select them based on our personal preferences, not based on how many times we happened to see them or who else they were associated with.

  And yet, as an outsider looking at someone else’s behavior, it’s hard not to wonder.

  Because, at our core, we are all social animals. Whether we realize it or not, other people have a subtle and surprising impact on almost everything we do. When it comes to our own lives, social influence is as silent as it is powerful. Just because we can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

  It’s easy to see social influence with a cynical eye and bemoan that people are lemmings. Mindless followers swayed by those around them. And there are certainly cases where conformity is bad. Our tendency to imitate can encourage us to go along when we should dissent, or stay silent when we should speak up.

  But, by itself, social influence is neither bad nor good. If people follow others who are evil, it will lead to more evil in the world. If people follow others that are good, it will lead to more good.

  We can also choose our influence. Social influence has a huge impact on behavior. But by understanding how it works, we can harness its power. We can avoid its downsides and take advantage of its benefits. We can maintain our individuality and avoid being swept up in the crowd. We can have more fulfilling social interactions, be more successful, and use others to help us make better-informed decisions. By understanding when social influence is beneficial, we can decide when to resist influence and when to embrace it.

  By gaining insight into how social influence works, we can put it to work, improving our own lives, and the lives of others. Influence is a tool, like any other. If we understand it, we don’t have to stand passively by and just watch it happen. We can use it. We can design environments, shape situations, and build programs like Opower and Moving to Opportunity that harness the power of social influence to make the world a better place.

  Where do you see influence? How do the others around you shape your life and how are you shaping theirs?

  Understanding these often invisible influences can make us all better off.

  * * *

  I. Related research examined exactly how much growing up in different areas either increased or decreased expected income later in life. Each additional year spent growing up in Bergen, New Jersey, for example, raises household income in adulthood by around 0.70 percent. Each additional year spent in Manhattan, New York, however, decreases later household income by over 0.50 percent. This may not seem huge by itself, but it creates sizable differences when aggregated across twenty years of exposure. Growing up in Bergen would raise earnings by almost 15 percent relative to the national average, while growing up in New York City would decrease earnings by almost 10 percent. See http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/ for more information.

  Want to be more influential? Make better decisions?

  Motivate yourself and others?

  Get more tips and tools at JonahBerger.com

  Acknowledgments

  In some ways, writing the Acknowledgments section of a second book is tougher than the first. If you’re not sure you’ll ever write another book, you spend the first book thanking all the people that have helped you on your journey throughout life. If you end up writing a second book, though, you’re a little stuck. Should you re-thank all the people that helped you get there? Is thanking them the first time around enough? Regardless, another thanks to all the people I mentioned in Contagious: Why Things Catch On. Without you, Invisible Influence would not have been possible.

  Many new thanks as well. Thanks to Tanya Chartrand, Sapna Cheryan, and Sarah Townsend for helpful research pointers along the way, Rebecca Bruno for sharing insights on baby names, and Richard Moreland, Nicole Stephens, and a number of other people who didn’t end up making the final version for generously agreeing to be interviewed. Thanks to Ben Loehnen, Richard Rhorer, Maureen Cole, and the rest of the team at Simon & Schuster for making this book just as fun to work on as the last one, Alice La Plante for sharpening the writing, and the eagle-eyed Mara Ana Vitorino for editing, even while pregnant. Thanks to all the players and staff at East Palo Alto AYSO for allowing me to coach, the Marketing faculty at Duke University for lending me an office while I wrote much of this book, and guys from pickup basketball at Wilson for giving me a great break from writing. I am terrible, but hopefully this book provides a reasonable excuse.

  A huge debt of gratitude goes out to both my collaborators and anyone whose research is mentioned in this book. Being a social scientist would not be anywhere near as fun without you. My journey into social psychology started in Eliot Applestein’s AP psychology course in high school. My final paper for that class ended up being about groupthink, and it got me started thinking about how social influence impacts behavior. Thanks to him and all the other teachers and professors along the way—Lee Ross, Mark Lepper, Hazel Markus, and Phil Zimbardo, and various others that took the time to share the wonder of the field with me. I feel lucky to be a part of it.

  Someone once asked a group of people who their favorite social psychologist was. It’s an impossible question to answer. In addition to the giants mentioned above, Cialdini, Lewin, Sherif, and others would certainly be on my list. But in terms of sheer breadth of contribution, Bob Zajonc would certainly be up there. It’s amazing how many studies in this book reference his work and how many areas he contributed to. Learning his life story only adds to the legend.

  Thanks again to Jim Levine. The longer we work together the more I appreciate everything you do. You always give sage advice and provide a great reminder that a fulfilling life lived is about more than just work. Thanks also to Diane and Jeffrey, Nancy and Steve, Kiva, Victor, Danny, Fred, and all the other people that took the time to lead the way and provide encouragement. In addition to the requested feedback, you always provide an extra dose of enthusiasm to keep me going.

  And most importantly, to Jordan and Zoë. For helping and supporting, cajoling and understanding, listening and thinking, and caring and believing every step of the way. Even when we all agree that chasing a tennis ball would be much more fun. Your influence is both visible and invisible, and for both I am sincerely grateful.

  © DEBORAH FEINGOLD

  JONAH BERGER is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has published dozens of articles in top-tier academic outlets, and popular accounts of his work often appear in newspapers and periodicals such a
s The New York Times, Science, and Harvard Business Review. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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  Notes

  Introduction

  1. The literature on social influence is huge, but for some examples, see Sorensen, Alan T. (2006), “Social Learning and Health Plan Choice,” RAND Journal of Economics 37, 929–45; Sacerdote, Bruce (2001), “Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, 681–704; Lerner, Josh, and Ulrike Malmendier (2013), “With a Little Help from My (Random) Friends: Success and Failure in Post-Business School Entrepreneurship,” Review of Financial Studies 26, 2411–52; Beshears, John, J. Choi, D. Laibson, B. C. Madrian, and K. L. Milkman (2012), “The Effect of Providing Peer Information on Retirement Savings Decisions,” Financial Literacy Center Working Paper, WR- 800-SSA; Case, Anne, and Lawrence Katz (1991), “The Company You Keep: The Effects of Family and Neighborhood on Disadvantaged Youths,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Number 3705; Brown, Jeffrey, Z. Ivkovic, P. Smith, and S. Weisbenner (2008), “Neighbors Matter: Causal Community Effects and Stock Market Participation,” Journal of Finance 63, 1509–31; Gerber, Alan, and Todd Rogers (2009), “Descriptive Social Norms and Motivation to Vote: Everybody’s Voting and So Should You,” Journal of Politics 71, 1–14; Frey, Bruno, and Stephan Meier (2004), “Social Comparisons and Pro-Social Behavior: Testing ‘Conditional Cooperation’ in a Field Experiment,” American Economic Review 94, 1717–22; and Card, D., A. Mas, E. Moretti, and E. Saez (2012), “Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction,” American Economic Review 10, 2981–3003.

  2. Pronin, Emily, Jonah Berger, and Sarah Molouki (2007), “Alone in a Crowd of Sheep: Asymmetric Perceptions of Conformity and Their Roots in an Introspection Illusion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, 585–95.

  3. To control for order effects, we randomized the order of the questions. Sometimes people answered the questions about their own purchase first and then someone else’s. Other times people completed the questions for someone else’s purchase and then rated their own.

  4. Match.com and Chadwick Martin Bailey Behavioral Studies (2010), “Match.com and Chadwick Martin Bailey 2009–2010 Studies: Recent Trends: Online Dating,” 1–5.

  5. For a review of mere exposure research, see Bornstein, Robert (1989), “Exposure and Affect: Overview and Meta-Analysis of Research,” Psychological Bulletin 106, 263–89.

  1. Monkey See, Monkey Do

  1. Sherif, Muzafer (1935), “A Study of Some Social Factors in Perception: Chapter 2,” Archives of Psychology 187, 17–22.

  2. For a summary of some of Asch’s studies, see Asch, Solomon (1956), “Studies of Independence and Conformity: A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority,” Psychological Monographs 70, 1–70.

  3. Waal, Erica, C. Borgeaud, and A. Whiten (2013), “Potent Social Learning and Conformity Shape a Wild Primate’s Foraging Decisions,” Science 340, 483–85. Other animal research shows that whales acquire new feeding methods from other whales. See Allen, Jenny, M. Weinrich, W. Hoppitt, and L. Rendell (2013), “Network-Based Diffusion Analysis Reveals Cultural Transmission of Lobtail Feeding in Humpback Whales,” Science 26, 485–88; and Dindo, Marietta, T. Stoinski, and A. Whiten (2011), “Observational Learning in Orangutan Cultural Transmission Chains,” Biology Letters 7, 181–83. Other work suggests that different groups of chimpanzees have different cultures, which is consistent with the notion that they learn from others in their own group but that different groups differ. See Whiten, Andrew, J. Goodall, W. McGrew, T. Nishida, V. Reynolds, Y. Sugiyama, and C. Boesch (1999), “Cultures in Chimpanzees,” Nature 399, 682–85. Fish copy other fish. See Pike, Thomas, and Kevin Laland (2010), “Conformist Learning in Nine-Spined Sticklebacks’ Foraging Decisions,” Biology Letters 6, 466–68.

  4. Little, Anthony C., Michael Burt, and David Perrett (2006), “Assortative Mating for Perceived Facial Personality Traits,” Personality and Individual Differences 40, 973–84; Hinsz, Verlin (1989), “Facial Resemblance in Engaged and Married Couples,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 6, 223–29; Griffiths, Wayne, and Phillip Kunz (1973), “Assortative Mating: A Study of Physiognomic Homogamy,” Social Biology 20, 448–53; Zajonc, Robert, Pamela Adelmann, Sheila Murphy, and Paula Niedenthal (1987), “Convergence in the Physical Appearance of Spouses,” Motivation and Emotion 11, 335–46.

  5. Turns out there are many reasons chameleons change color, including temperature, light, and mood. While many of these have nothing to do with the color of their surroundings, popular perception remains that chameleons change to fit their environment. Ligon, Russell, and The Conversation (2013), “Chameleons Talk Tough by Changing Colors,” The Conversation (December 19), reposted at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chameleons-talk-tough-by-changing-colors/.

  6. Chartrand, Tanya, and John Bargh (1999), “The Chameleon Effect: The Perception-Behavior Link and Social Interaction,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76, 893–910. For integrative reviews of research on mimicry, see Van Baaren, Rick, L. Jansen, T. Chartrand, and A. Dijksterhuis (2009), “Where Is the Love? The Social Aspects of Mimicry,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 364, 2381–89; and Chartrand, Tanya, and Jessica Lakin (2013), “The Antecedents and Consequences of Human Behavioral Mimicry,” Annual Review of Psychology 64, 285–308.

  7. Simner, Marvin (1971), “Newborn’s Response to the Cry of Another Infant,” Developmental Psychology 5, 136–50.

  8. Mirror Neuron Forum (2011), Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, 369–407.

  9. For an early discussion of mirror neurons, see Fadiga, L., L. Fogassi, G. Pavesi, and G. Rizzolatti (1995), “Motor Facilitation During Action Observation: A Magnetic Stimulation Study,” Journal of Neurophysiology 73, 2608–11. For a more recent discussion, see Gallese, Vittorio, M. Gernsbacher, C. Hayes, G. Hickok, and M. Iacoboni (2011), “Mirror Neuron Forum,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, 369–407.

  10. Maddux, W. W., E. Mullen, and A. Galinsky (2008), “Chameleons Bake Bigger Pies and Take Bigger Pieces: Strategic Behavioral Mimicry Facilitates Negotiation Outcomes,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44, 461–68.

  11. For some examples of the consequences of mimicry, see Ireland, Molly, R. Slatcher, P. Eastwick, L. Scissors, E. Finkel, and J. Pennebaker (2010), “Language Style Matching Predicts Relationship Initiation and Stability,” Psychological Science 20, 1–6; Maddux et al., “Chameleons Bake Bigger Pies and Take Bigger Pieces”; and Van Baaren, Rick, R. Holland, B. Steenaert, and A. Knippenberg (2003), “Mimicry for Money: Behavioral Consequences of Imitation,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 39, 393–98.

  12. Sorensen, Alan (2007), “Bestseller Lists and Product Variety,” Journal of Industrial Economics 4, 715–38.

  2. A Horse of a Different Color

  1. LeBolt, Dr. Wendy (2014), “Are National Team Players Born or Made?” SoccerWire.com (December 2).

  2. Hopwood, Melissa J., J. Baker, C. MacMahon, and D. Farrow (2012), “Faster, Higher, Stronger . . . and Younger? Birth Order, Sibling Sport Participation and Sport Expertise,” paper presented at the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii (June 2012), Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology 34, S235.

  3. There is a great deal of research on birth order and academic achievement, but for some examples, see Zajonc
, Robert, and Gregory Markus (1975), “Birth Order and Intellectual Development,” Psychological Review 82, 74–88; Zajonc, Robert (2001), “The Family Dynamics of Intellectual Development,” American Psychologist 56, 490–96; Zajonc, Robert (1976), “Family Configuration and Intelligence,” Science 16, 227–36; Hotz, Joseph, and Juan Pantano (2013), “Strategic Parenting, Birth Order, and School Performance,” Journal of Population Economics, 1–26; Behrman, Jere, and Paul Taubman (1986), “Birth Order, Schooling and Earnings,” Journal of Labor Economics 4, S121–S145; Black, Sandra, P. Devereux, and K. Salvanes (2005), “The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children’s Education,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 120, 669–700; and Black, Sandra, P. Devereux, and K. Salvanes (2008), “Small Family, Smart Family? Family Size and the IQ Scores of Young Men,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 13336.

  4. Paulhaus, Delroy, P. Trapnell, and D. Chen (1999), “Birth Order Effects on Personality and Achievement Within Families,” Psychological Science 10, 482–88.

  5. Altus, William (1966), “Birth Order and Its Sequelae,” Science 151, 44–49; Clark, Roger, and Glenn Rice (1982), “Family Constellations and Eminence: The Birth Orders of Nobel Prize winners,” Journal of Psychology 110, 281–87; and Sulloway, Frank (1996), Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives (New York: Vintage Books).

  6. Theroux, N. L. (1993), “Birth Order and Its Relationship to Academic Achievement and Selected Personal Traits.” unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.