Invisible Influence (30 page)

24.
 Stephens, Nicole, H. Markus, and S. Townsend (2007), “Choice as an Act of Meaning: The Case of Social Class,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
93, 814–30.

3.
Not If
They're
Doing It

1.
 Baran, S. J., J. J. Mok, M. Land, and T. Y. Kang (1989), “You Are What You Buy: Mass-Mediated Judgments of People's Worth,”
Journal of Communication
39, 46–54. For a great review of research on how people make inferences based on everything from clothes to websites, see Gosling, Sam (2008),
Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You
(New York: Basic Books).

2.
 For some early work on signaling in economics, see Spence, Michael (1973), “Job Market Signaling,”
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
87, 355–74.

3.
 Cohen, Geoffrey L. (2003), “Party Over Policy: The Dominating Impact of Group Influence on Political Beliefs,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
85, 808–22.

4.
 Bee, Mark, S. Perrill, and P. Owen (2000), “Male Green Frogs Lower the Pitch of Acoustic Signals in Defense of Territories: A Possible Dishonest Signal of Size?”
Behavioral Ecology
11, 169–77. Also see Backwell, Patricia, J. Christy, S. Telford, M. Jennions, and N. Passmore (2000), “Dishonest Signaling in a Fiddler Crab,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
267, 719–24.

5.
 All collected money was donated to a cancer cause.

6.
 Taylor, John (1974), “John Doe, Jr.: A Study of His Distribution in Space, Time, and the Social Structure,”
Social Forces
53, 11–21; McFerran, Brent, D. Dahl, G. Fitzsimons, and A. Morales (2009), “I'll Have What She's Having: Effects of Social Influence and Body Type on the Food Choices of Others,”
Journal of Consumer Research
36, 1–15. Fryer, Roland, and Steven Levitt (2002), “Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School,”
National Bureau of Economic Research Paper No. 8975
.

7.
 White, Katherine, and Darren Dahl (2006), “To Be or Not Be? The Influence of Dissociative Reference Groups on Consumer Preferences,”
Journal of Consumer Psychology
16, 404–14.

8.
 Hemphill, Cadelle, A. Vanneman, and T. Rahman (2011), “Achievement Gaps: How Hispanic and White Students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress,” U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, DC.

9.
 For Fordham and Ogbu's original research, see Fordham, Signithia, and John Ogbu (1986), “Black Students' School Successes: Coping with the Burden of ‘Acting White,' ”
Urban Review
18, 176–206. For other discussions of acting white, see Carbado, Devon, and Mitu Gulati (2013),
Acting White? Rethinking Race in “Post-Racial” America
(New York: Oxford University Press)
;
and Buck, Stuart (2011),
Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation
(New Haven: Yale University Press). Some researchers have even challenged Fordham and Ogbu's conclusions, arguing that both black and white students want to succeed in school and that both show higher levels of self-esteem when they do well. These researchers have suggested that successful students of all races are stigmatized for being geeks or nerds, and so, rather than being about race, the dilemma is about high achievement more broadly. See also Cook, Philip, and Jens Ludwig (1997), “Weighing the Burden of ‘Acting White': Are There Race Differences in Attitudes Toward Education?”
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
16, 256–78; and Tyson, Karolyn, W. Darity, and D. Castellino (2005), “It's Not ‘a Black Thing': Understanding the Burden of Acting White and Other Dilemmas of High Achievement,”
American Sociological Review
70, 582–605.

10.
 Fryer, Roland, and Paul Torelli (2010), “An Empirical Analysis of ‘Acting White,' ”
Journal of Public Economics
94, 380–96. Also see Bursztyn, Leonardo, and Robert Jensen (2015), “How Does Peer Pressure Affect Educational Investments?”
Quarterly Journal of Economics
130, 1329-67. Similar effects have been observed for a number of health promotion behaviors. See Oyserman, Daphna, S. Fryberg, and N. Yoder (2007), “Identity-Based Motivation and Health,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
93, 1011–27.

11.
 Oyserman, Daphna, D. Brickman, D. Bybee, and A. Celious (2006), “Fitting in Matters: Markers of In-group Belonging and Academic Outcomes,”
Psychological Science
17, 854–61.

12.
 Similar pejorative terms exist for a variety of racial groups: Asian people who dress or act stereotypically white may be called “Twinkies” or “bananas,” i.e., yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Adolescent boys who have “baby-faces” or look young are more likely to commit crimes or be involved in delinquent behavior. Just as light-skinned blacks may try harder to shed the label of “acting white,” boys who look younger may act tougher to refute the notion that they are childlike. Similarly, some data suggests that Asian-Americans may be more likely to eat fatty traditionally American foods when their American identities are threatened. Guendelman, Maya, S. Cheryan, and B. Monin (2011), “Fitting In but Getting Fat: Identity Threat and Dietary Choices Among U.S. Immigrant Groups,”
Psychological Science
22, 959–67.

13.
 Executive Office of the President (2013), “Women and Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM),” The White House, Washington, DC.

14.
 Cheryan, Sapna, V. Plaut, P. Davies, and C. Steele (2009), “Ambient Belonging: How Stereotypical Cues Impact Gender Participation in Computer Science,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
97, 1045–60; Cheryan, Sapna, B. Drury, and M. Vichayapai (2012), “Enduring Influence of Stereotypical Computer Science Role Models on Women's Academic Aspirations,”
Psychology of Women Quarterly
37, 72–79; Cheryan, Sapna, A. Meltzoff, and S. Kim (2011), “Classrooms Matter: The Design of Virtual Classrooms Influences Gender Disparities in Computer Science Classes,”
Computers & Education
57, 1825–35.

15.
 Berger, Jonah, and Morgan Ward (2010), “Subtle Signals of Inconspicuous Consumption,”
Journal of Consumer Research
37, 555–69.

16.
 Subtle signals are particularly useful when groups want to coordinate without being detected by everyone else. In the 1980s, gay
men needed a way of being out to each other but not to the mainstream. Discrimination was rampant and people could lose their jobs or even face physical abuse for their sexual orientation. So they had to devise subtle signals that could be identified by other gay men but not by outsiders. The “Old Clone” look was one such solution, and included tight jeans, a flannel shirt, construction boots, and a moustache—instantly recognizable by other gay men, but covert enough that most non-gay colleagues would miss the significance.

17.
 ABC News
Nightline
(2013), “Black Market Counterfeit Goods Rakes in $500 Billion Yearly,”
Yahoo! News
; Clifford, Stephanie (2010), “Economic Indicator: Even Cheaper Knockoffs,”
New York Times
, July 31, 2010, A1; MarkMonitor, “Seven Best Practices for Fighting Counterfeit Sales Online,”
MarkMonitor.com
White Paper (September 2010).

18.
 Carvajal, Doreen (2008), “EBay Ordered to Pay $61 Million in Sale of Counterfeit Goods,”
New York Times
, July 1, C1,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/technology/01ebay.html?_r=0
.

19.
 
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/05/16/8260140/
.

20.
 Raustiala, Kal, and Christopher Sprigman (2006), “The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design,”
Virginia Law Review
92, 1687–777.

21.
 Griffiths, Sarah (2013), “Sorry Popeye, Spinach DOESN'T Make Your Muscles Big: Expert Reveals Sailor's Love of Food Was Due to a Misplaced Decimal,”
Daily Mail
, July 3, 1.

22.
 Berger, Jonah (2008), “Shifting Signals to Help Health: Using Identity Signaling to Reduce Risky Health Behaviors,”
Journal of Consumer Research
35, 509–18.

23.
 Cheryan, Sapna, V. Plaut, P. Davies, and C. Steele (2009), “Ambient Belonging: How Stereotypical Cues Impact Gender Participation in Computer Science,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
97, 1045–60.

24.
 In a funny version of identity signaling, a comedian used this strategy to get kids to adopt a new toy. If there is one thing young kids want, it's to not be thought of as babies. They are proud of moving past that stage of their life and see drinking from a bottle and sleeping in a crib as “baby stuff.” So a comedian got kids to adopt a toy by telling them it was the only way to prove they were not babies—that if they didn't have the toy, other people would think they still wore diapers.

25.
 Sean, Young, A. David Nussbaum, and Benoit Monin (2007), “Potential Moral Stigma and Reactions to Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Evidence for a Disjunction Fallacy,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
33, 789–99.

4.
Similar but Different

1.
 Berger, Jonah, Eric Bradlow, Alex Braunstein, and Yao Zhang (2012), “From Karen to Katie: Using Baby Names to Study Cultural Evolution,”
Psychological Science
23, 1067–73.

2.
 Bertrand, Marianne, and Sendhil Mullainathan (2004), “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination,”
American Economic Review
94, 991–1013.

3.
 “Hurricane Katrina Statistics Fast Facts,” CNN Library, uploaded August 24, 2015.

4.
 Landwehr, Jan, A. Labroo, and A. Herrmann (2011), “Gut Liking for the Ordinary: Incorporating Design Fluency Improves Automobile Sales Forecasts,”
Marketing Science
30, 416–29. This effect is stronger among cars that have more complex designs.

5.
 This text is taken directly from the experimental instructions of Monahan, Jennifer, S. Murphy, and R. Zajonc (2000), “Subliminal Mere Exposure: Specific, General and Diffuse Effects,”
Psychological Science
11, 462–66. See also Gordon, Peter, and Keith Holyoak (1983), “Implicit Learning and Generalization of the ‘Mere Exposure' Effect,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
45, 492–500.

6.
 Novel faces that resemble positively evaluated people are evaluated more positively. See Verosky, Sara, and Alexander Todorov (2010), “Generalization of Affective Learning About Faces to Perceptually Similar Faces,”
Psychological Science
21, 779–85.

7.
 Bermant, Gordon (1976),
Sexual Behavior: Hard Times with the Coolidge Effect in Psychological Research—The Inside Story
, eds. M. H. Siegel and H. P. Ziegler (New York: Harper and Row).

8.
 Hirschman, Elizabeth (1980), “Innovativeness, Novelty Seeking and Consumer Creativity,”
Journal of Consumer Research
7, 283–95; Sluckin, Wladyslaw, D. Hargreaves, and A. Colman, “Novelty and Human Aesthetic Preferences,” in
Exploration in Animals and Humans
, eds. J. Archer and L. Birke (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold), 245–69.

9.
 Aron, Arthur, C. Norman, E. Aron, C. McKenna, and R. Heyman (2000), “Couples' Shared Participation in Novel and Arousing Activities and Experienced Relationship Quality,”
Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology
78, 273–84; Wu, Fang, and Bernardo Huberman (2007), “Novelty and Collective Attention,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
104; Buchanan, K. E., and A. Bardi (2010), “Acts of Kindness and Acts of Novelty Affect Life Satisfaction,”
Journal of Social Psychology
150, 235–37. Also see research on the Hawthorne effect.

10.
 Dewsbury, Donald (1981), “Effects of Novelty on Copulatory Behavior: The Coolidge Effect and Related Phenomena,”
Psychological Bulletin
89, 464–82. This effect is certainly context dependent and has never really been examined in humans.

11.
 Miller, Claude (1971), “Sexual Satiety in the Male Golden Hamster (Mesocricetus auratus),” doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia, Dissertation Abstracts International 1972: Section A, Humanities and Social Sciences (University Microfilms); and Bunnell, Bradford, B. Boland, and D. Dewsbury (1977), “Copulatory Behavior of Golden Hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus),”
Behaviour
61, 180–205.

12.
 For research on Optimum Stimulation Level theory, see Berlyne, Daniel (1960),
Conflict, Arousal, and Curiosity
(New York: McGraw-Hill), 12. Maddi, Salvatore, B. Propst, and I. Feldinger (2006), “Three Expressions of the Need for Variety,”
Journal of Personality
33, 82–98, suggests a U-shaped relationship between stimulation and liking. Too little stimulation is boring and too much is overwhelming, but in between is just right.

13.
 Colman, Andrew, W. Sluckin, and D. Hargreaves (1981), “The Effect of Familiarity on Preferences for Surnames,”
British Journal of Psychology
72, 363–69.