Invisible Influence (28 page)

Moving to better neighborhoods improved people's lives, and the longer they lived in those better neighborhoods, the more their lives improved.

Where we live has a big impact on how our lives unfold.

Neighborhood effects are certainly multifaceted. Environments can encourage better health and well-being for a variety of reasons. Some areas have more produce-filled grocery stores, lower student-to-teacher ratios, and more community centers
where kids can run and play. All of which should lead to happier, healthier, and more prosperous residents.

But another key aspect is other people. One's peers. Are they playing sports or watching television? Are they joining the debate team or doing drugs?

And whether you're a kid growing up in a poor neighborhood, or a business executive living in a wealthy one, others surround us every day. The kids next door. Our coworkers at the office. The person swimming in the lane next to us at the pool.

Do our environments determine our fate? Certainly not. Growing up poor is no more of a life sentence than growing up rich is a guarantee.

But we are constantly shaped by the people around us.

Sometimes social influence leads to imitation. Like monkeys choosing between red and blue corn, we use others' behavior as information, simplifying choice and allowing us to pick better (and tastier) things than we might have on our own. We mimic the choices and actions of peers, and such imitation determines everything from how we look to the products and ideas that catch on.

That said, others not only attract, they can also repel. We order a different beverage than our dining companion or abandon music artists once they become too popular. Like younger siblings differentiating themselves from older ones, we strive to craft a distinct, separable identity. Even if we don't always choose differently, we frame our choices in ways that allow us to feel different enough.

And whether we imitate or differentiate depends on
who
those others are. The choices we make—what we wear, how hard we try in school, and what career we pursue—depend on who else is doing those things. Like small green frogs, we pick things that
send desired signals, and avoid choices and actions that send undesired ones.

But it's not simply either/or. We don't want to be exactly the same or completely different. Instead, we choose and behave in ways that allow us to be optimally distinct, threading the needle between similarity and difference. Like Goldilocks, we avoid the extremes. We like things that are moderately similar, blending the allure of novelty with the comfort of the familiar until it feels just right.

Finally, peers don't just affect what we choose, they motivate us to action. Others make us bike faster, save more energy, and turn losing into winning. And yet, if we fall too far behind, those same others can lead us to quit. To give up because the gap seems too large.

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

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.

ALSO BY JONAH BERGER

Contagious: Why Things Catch On

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.