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Peer pressure’s effects are perhaps more powerful than we thought (2014)
- pinchpp 10y agoThis is a kind of thing that you are never able to prove.
- oldmanjay 10y agoHeadline says control, numbers and article conclusion say influence. My skepticism says when someone attempts to reproduce this, it may just vanish. My cynicism says the post is preparing this as an excuse for trump winning.
- wutbrodo 10y agoThere are connotations of "control" that make it a flashier, more imprecise, more clickbaity way to say influence. Specifically, having some degree of control less than total control over one's behavior means roughly the same thing as having influence.
- oldmanjay 10y agoIf you have to explain away the meaning of something by using an order of magnitude more words, you're bullshitting
- wutbrodo 10y agoThat is truly one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Part of explaining something someone doesn't understand is making context explicit, context that is unstated and shared by those who do understand. Rules like yours that sound cute but make no sense are a poor, poor substitute for actual thought.
- paxtonab 10y agoThe article is from 2014 and it is about a paper studying "social effects in consumption" in a controlled situation (i.e. while you are stuck in an airplane), and another paper about social influences of high schoolers signing up for an SAT prep class. While the studies are interesting, it is hardly worthy of the click-bait title. TL;DR if you sit next to someone on an airplane who buys a drink you are 30% more likely to buy a drink yourself (and presumably the study successfully controlled for people traveling together). Edit: The post title was just changed from what I clicked on "People around you control your mind: The latest evidence" which was so much more entertaining!
- louprado 10y agoThe original title was also more accurate. The experiment involved neither "pressure" nor "peers".
- thebent 10y agoYeah, have to agree with louprado here. The 'People around you control your mind' although a bit more entertaining and click baity is actually more accurate than 'peer' or 'pressure'.
- rgbrenner 10y agoOn the airline experiment: says if the person sitting next to you purchases something, you're 30% more likely to purchase something. Isn't the person next to you more likely to be your friend or family member? What portion of people travel alone? And if they're related, chances are high they have similar expectations/acceptance of in-flight purchases. Edit: found this article with more details: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/pedro-m-gardete-fellow-airline-passengers-influence-what-you-buy https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/pedro-m-gardete-fellow... Apparently, if they have the same reservation #, it doubles.
- oldmanjay 10y agoReservation information was used to control for people flying together - not that I would consider it a foolproof method. In all the times I've flown, probably 80% were with someone but the reservations were not made together. I doubt I'm the only one for whom this is representative since it was business travel.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sethbannon 10y agoMakes me think airlines will soon start strategically placing "purchasers" throughout the plane in order to maximize the effect of this social pressure.
- savanaly 10y agoAs another commenter noted, it would not be cost effective to lose a whole seat just to sell a few more drinks, overpriced though they be. But it seems like they could increase sales in sort of the same way by distributing free or discounted drink vouchers to a select few passengers, and effectively turn those real passengers into "purchasers".
- phkahler 10y agoThey could track frequent flyers who usually buy stuff and make sure they are disbursed throughout the plane.
- ars 10y agoIt would not be cost effective for airlines (seats costs more than the purchases). But grocery stores on the other hand.... Setup areas with high cost brand name items, and purchasers to look at and prominently buy items. It would work even better at fairs, carnivals, etc since you might eventually recognize the person at a grocery store if you visit often. All you have to do is have people walking around nosily eating something that looks good.
- 6DM 10y agoThat's probably why they hand out samples. Never thought about it beyond the individual product being sampled.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- maneesh 10y agoGiving up several hundreds in ticket revenue to make 1-2 people 30% more likely to buy a drink...
- oldmanjay 10y agoNow that the headline is changed from the click-bait attempt at reducing individual responsibility for actions, I'm struck by just how insidiously pervasive these attempts seem to be. One could make a slightly paranoid case that it is a left-leaning goal to convince people that the aren't in charge of themselves anyway, so just let mama gov't take over.
- ZoF 10y agoIt's almost as if the end-game is a docile/subdued populace who is so unsure of themselves that they'll welcome basic income/restricted speech/gun control with open arms. Sounds like a right wing conspiracy to me :)
- MustardTiger 10y agoThis is why certain groups have such a strong interest in controlling twitter, facebook, google, etc. Most people simply go along with what they perceive as the majority opinion. This used to take the form of doing whate everyone around you does, which is why political views tended to group up so much by community. But we no longer have communities, we no longer speak to actual people, especially not about anything like politics. So that instinctive conformity is now based on easily falsified information presented though the media. This is why facebook prevents certain topics from trending, and puts others that are not naturally trending into the trending queue.
- RodericDay 10y agoYeah, a lot of people just play it safe. "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM" and all of that stuff.
- ZoF 10y agoIf I could Correct the Record here, no one is trying to control the narrative on these platforms. Sounds like a Republican funded lie to me :^)
- jmorphy88 10y agoLol. Care to comment on the many bannings/suspensions of prominent right-wing commentators/journalists on Twitter (Milo, Ricky Vaughn, Chuck Johnson, James O'Keefe, to name a few), the practice of "shadowbanning", as well of Facebook's well-documented history of deleting/censoring of posts about refugee crime in Europe and outright censorship of anti-refugee comments in Germany (under the guise of calling it "hate speech" of course...)?
- ZoF 10y agoI was kidding fam... I even used 'Correct the Record' in my comment... C'mon son.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> But we no longer have communities, we no longer speak to actual people, especially not about anything like politics. Oh but we do have communities, and we do talk to actual people (also about politics!) - it's just no longer strongly tied to your location. Blame the invention of the telephone, that lets you stay in touch with your family and friends at long distances, and the invention of the car, that lets you visit them often.
- Udik 10y agoIt gets worse. You are x% more likely to buy food if you just see or smell it, without even a "peer" enjoying it. Isn't that horrifying? That must be called something like food-pressure.
- jsprogrammer 10y agoWhy would I buy invisible, non-smelling food?
- rasz_pl 10y agobecause hungry?
- hinkley 10y agoAround here we just call that Cinnabon.
- otoburb 10y agoAt the Yonge-Eglinton TTC station in Toronto it's especially difficult not to succumb to the scent of Cinnabon wafting through the air.
- hasenj 10y agoIt will not force you to buy it if you hate cinnamon. I can't stand the smells coming off a cinnabon shop.
- mmel 10y agobrb, buying cinnabon.
- tiglionabbit 10y agoPerhaps it's just priming?
- bimr 10y ago
- quirkot 10y ago"Peer pressure's effects are perhaps more powerful than we thought" only if you've never heard of Stanley Milgram
- gricardo99 10y agoUnless there's a lesser-known experiment by Stanley Milgram on peer pressure, the most famous one is about "obedience to authority figures"[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
- goodJobWalrus 10y agoThere is also Asch experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
- the_economist 10y agoPaul Graham wrote about this in an essay called Cities & Ambition: http://paulgraham.com/cities.html http://paulgraham.com/cities.html
- gumby 10y agoThe SAT Prep example was more interesting to me. The whole article was frustratingly brief, but I guess that's what the market is calling for these days. Or is it just the influencers?
- bimr 10y agoas @tiglionabbit mentioned, this is priming. The term should be famous now thanks to the books "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Nudge". Also probably a dose of recency bias. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/psyching-us-out/?_r=0 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/psyching-us-...
- gojomo 10y agoAnd yet, perhaps an equally-apt word is infamous, because 'priming' effects appear often among those psychological research results that fail-to-reproduce: http://www.chronicle.com/article/Power-of-Suggestion/136907/ http://www.chronicle.com/article/Power-of-Suggestion/136907/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
- bimr 10y agoAlthough, to be fair to Richard Thaler, the article you cite itself falls prey to the 1/n "mental accounting" heuristic. It gives half of its attention to a call center replication that did support the priming effect.
- vannevar 10y agoI agree: nothing in the study seems to control for the simple proximity of the food or entertainment, compared to actually seeing someone enjoy it.
- 7402 10y agoRegarding buying food on an airplane, what about the effect of simple politeness? I'm not sure I would call it "peer pressure," when I feel uncomfortable about eating food next to someone who doesn't have any. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I would rather wait to eat until the person next to me also has food. Once I was on a train, and the woman next to me offered to share some of the sandwich she brought with her. I said, "no thanks, I was about to go get some food from the dining car." I got my own sandwich and brought it back. I understood completely what was behind her offer, and I am sure we both felt more comfortable eating together, even though we didn't know each other and would never see the other person again.
- auggierose 10y agoThere's politeness, and then there is that.
- ftrflyr 10y agoI drink once in my life. When I was 20. Why? I was interested in what being drunk felt like from a scientific perspective. Upon drinking all the liquor I could find in the house, the room began to spin and I didn't like the feeling of not being in control so I found the nearest couch and passed out. I often wonder if I am programmed differently than other people. Peer pressure has never really had any effect on me. When people would try to convince me to drink, I would grab a root beer and relish in the joy of drinking something that not only tastes great (not having to acquire a taste for) but did not result in a loss of my inhibitions. (Yes, I am well aware of the argument that sugar and soda are probably far worse than occasionally drinking). Growing up I often pondered the reasons why people begin drinking: Peer pressure, wanting to fit in, the need to feel cool, etc. None of these things every pushed me in the direction of needing to drink.
- tdfx 10y agoI'm not a naturally extroverted person, but when I drink I trend more towards that personality type. I spend less time overanalyzing things and I am more engaged with the people around me. In a way it "dumbs me down" and makes me think a bit less, which makes me more social, whereas the completely sober me would sit there lost in my own thoughts.
- donum 10y agoAm I right to understand that you think you couldn't behave like this without alcohol? Even if drugs may help in the short term to act ‚more open’ — everything you do when you're drunk is because of you and not caused by the drug! Be concious and open and people will be open to you. The world around you is a mirror of yourself!
- anindha 10y agoPeople sitting next to each other are more likely a group and going to perform the same action because of this. Two people decide to watch a movie together or two people decide to get lunch on the plane rather than before getting on. They need to control for tickets bought together.
- salmonellaeater 10y agoIn the airplane situation, I think it's worth stepping back to consider whether peer pressure is the simplest explanation. I think it's much more likely that people are just free-riding on others' mental effort of evaluating whether buying things on an airplane is worth it.