Invisible Influence (19 page)

The answer, it turns out, was Hurricane Katrina.

What's in a name? From Emily and Eric to Apple and Blue Ivy, everyone has one. Our names not only follow us our entire lives, they also influence the lives we lead. First names affect everything from how attractive people seem to whether they receive callbacks from potential employers.
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So it's no surprise that parents agonize over the right moniker for their child. Prospective mothers and fathers spend hours searching through naming books, combing through blogs, and vetting possibilities.

But what makes a particular name sound, well, good?

Associations clearly matter. Just as Rebecca avoided Gabriel because it reminded her of someone she didn't like, the
particular person a name conjures can have a big impact on choice. That Eva sounds old-fashioned can be good or bad depending on your preferences. Parents avoid names like Adolf for obvious reasons.

But when we analyzed how the popularity of different names changed over time, we found something interesting.

Through their role in providing social security numbers, the U.S. Social Security Administration keeps track of what names parents give to their kids. For over 125 years, they have records of how many people with different names were born each year. How many Jacobs and Susans and Kyles and Jessies were born in 1900, 1901, 1902, and so on. More than 280 million births and over seven thousand different names.

Some names (like Luke and Mia) have become more popular over time, while others (such as Charles and Elizabeth) have become less popular. Some names (Paula or Tess) increased in popularity for a period, only to decrease again. And some names (Jack or Laura) peaked twice, increasing and decreasing and increasing and decreasing again.

When we sifted through all the data, we found that hurricanes influenced how people named their children. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, almost 10 percent more babies were born with names beginning with a
K
sound (compared to the prior year). After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, names that started with a soft “ah” sound increased 7 percent. That's thousands of babies getting certain names, just because a big hurricane happened to hit.

On the surface, this doesn't make sense. Why would anyone name his child after a hurricane?

Hurricane Katrina was one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. It caused more than $100 billion
in property damage and killed more than 1,800 people.
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Who would want their child associated with such a lethal natural disaster? It would be like naming your son Stalin and hoping no one made the connection.

This intuition is partially right. Popularity of the name Katrina itself decreased by almost 40 percent after the storm hit. The first association most people had with the name Katrina right after the hurricane occurred was the storm itself, so many people shied away from giving that name to their kids.
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But that wasn't the only effect Hurricane Katrina had on naming patterns. While the hurricane decreased the popularity of the name Katrina
itself
, it increased the popularity of
other
names that began with the same phoneme or hard
K
sound. Use of the name Keely increased by 25 percent. Fifty-five percent more babies were given the name Kaelyn. And names like Kinsey, Kate, Carmine, and Cora all became more popular.

And the reason has everything to do with the value of moderate similarity.

When picking a name, parents think a lot about how popular the name is. While some parents like unique names (Moxie Crimefighter, anyone?), most want a name that is a little more, well, standard. Too popular, though, and people may avoid it.

But beyond the name itself, what about the popularity of
other
names?

Sure, lots of baby Keegans running around might affect whether parents choose that name, but what about baby Kevins and Calebs? Could the fact that these names start with the same hard
K
sound affect whether parents decide to name their boy Keegan?

It turns out that the answer is yes. Names are more likely to be popular when similar-sounding names have been popular recently.

People are more likely to name their children Morgan or Maggie when there are more baby Michaels and Madisons. And more likely to name their kids Lisa or Lyle if Lexi and Lance have been popular recently.

Hurricanes have a similar influence on naming patterns because they influence how often we hear certain names, and thus sounds.

When a particularly damaging storm like Katrina hits, people hear the name Katrina again and again. The nightly news talks about when Katrina will make landfall, people at the grocery store are chatting about how much havoc Katrina has wreaked on the country. Again, and again, people hear the name Katrina and the sounds that make up that name. And while this echo chamber drives parents to avoid the name Katrina itself, it also leads them to give their babies similar-sounding names.

Analogous patterns occur in a variety of domains.

Some cars look more prototypical, or similar to other cars on the market. The Volkswagen Jetta, for example, looks a lot like many other cars out there. It has the same standard-looking grille
and lightly sloping headlights. One could easily confuse it with a Toyota, Nissan, or a number of other available options.

Other cars look more different. The Volkswagen Beetle looks unlike anything else on the market. It has round bug eyes, a dome-shaped roof, and a grille that almost smiles at you when you look at it head-on. It's actually built on the same chassis as the normal-looking Volkswagen Golf and has the same technology, but its appearance is quite distinct.

These differences in visual appearance predict sales. Whether looking at economy or more premium cars, and even controlling for things like price and advertising, models that look more prototypical, or similar to other cars on the market, sell better.
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Similarity increases evaluation (and sales) for the same reason that mere exposure works. Just as the more we see something, the more we like it, the more we see something, the more we like
other
things that share similar features.

Imagine you're asked to participate in an experiment regarding how quickly people can make judgments of new or novel shapes.

You'll be shown a number of drawings, presented at rapid speeds. After a drawing is flashed briefly, it will be replaced by a background of black, white, and grey dots. The background will give you a place to focus your eyes before the next picture is flashed. The pictures will be flashed so quickly that they may be difficult to see, but do your best.
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The first drawing you see is something like the following:

It's actually a Chinese character, but your job is not to guess what it means, just to answer how much you like it. (If you happen to speak Mandarin, just focus on the shape's visual appeal.)

On a scale from 1 to 100, where 1 means you don't like it at all and 100 means you like it quite a bit, how much do you like the drawing?

You only get to look at the image for 5 milliseconds, or approximately a honeybee's wing flap, before being shown something like this background picture to cleanse your visual palate:

Then, just a second later, you're shown another drawing. How much do you like this one?

The drawings are shown so rapidly that you don't have time to process them in depth. They just seem like abstract shapes whizzing by.

After seeing a number of these drawings, you move on to
the second phase of the experiment. Here you are again shown drawings, but now they show up for slightly longer, around one second.

How much do you like this one?

Without your realizing it, the drawings in the second part of the experiment are a mixture of three types of shapes. Some of the drawings are Chinese characters you were shown during the initial phase. They went by too fast for you to realize you've seen them before, but they are repeats all the same.

Another group of drawings are novel Chinese characters. They have the same structure as the first set, but you weren't shown them in the initial phase.

The third group is made up of random polygons. Multisided shapes like a rhombus or a pentagon.

Thus some of the shapes are old (the Chinese characters you've seen), some are new but similar (the Chinese characters you haven't seen), and some are new but different (the polygons).

When scientists conducted a similar experiment, they found two things. First, exposure influenced liking. People liked shapes they had seen previously, even though they didn't realize they'd seen them. And they liked those previously seen shapes more than the random polygons they hadn't seen before. Just like the women in the psychology class over the course of the semester, the more you see something, the more you like it.

More remarkably, this boost in evaluation also spread to the new but similar items. Seeing one set of Chinese characters made
people like other Chinese characters more, even if they hadn't seen those specific characters previously.

And it wasn't just something weird about Chinese characters. The researchers found the same results if the initial shapes shown were random polygons instead. Seeing one set of polygons not only made participants like those polygons more, it made them like other polygons that they hadn't even seen.

The more you see something, the more you like
similar
things as well.

Part of the reason similar things look or sound better is familiarity. If you've seen something before, it's easier for your brain to process. The mind doesn't have to do as much work to figure out what it is, and this reduced effort generates a positive feeling that we interpret as familiarity.

The lure of the familiar has evolutionary benefits. It helps children bond with their caregivers, guides animals toward plants that are safe to eat, and helps spouses stay together through mood swings, dirty clothes on the floor, and other bumps in the road.