Invisible Influence

by Jonah Berger

  This is particularly true among siblings who are similar in age. In three-child families, thirdborns tend to be more similar to firstborns than they are to their next older sibling.12 Differentiation also ends up being greater among same-sex than opposite sex siblings. Opposite-sex siblings already differ on one major dimension, making it easier for them to be similar on others.

  Kids’ personalities even seem to shift over time in opposition to their siblings.13 As one child becomes more extraverted, another becomes more introverted. Like the proverbial yin and yang, as one moves the other moves with it. Forever connected, but forever striving for difference.

  * * *

  Siblings, then, serve an important function. They are playmates and confidants, allies and friends. But they also shape the environment one grows up in. Both as role models and as points of differentiation.

  “I think I learned a lot from her,” soccer star Morgan Brian said of her sister. “I saw her like soccer but not really pursue it. Maybe I wanted to be the opposite.”

  THE DRIVE FOR DIFFERENCE

  Imagine you’re buying a piece of art. You’re not usually a big art buyer, but you happened to be walking past a gallery and the piece just drew you in. It’s a stunning painting. A bit abstract, but with lush hues, beautiful lines, and gorgeous composition. Part of a limited set of fifteen from the same artist. It just speaks to you and the colors match perfectly with your living room.

  A couple of days before you’re supposed to finalize the purchase, you happen to drop by your neighbor’s house for coffee. The two of you are fairly close friends, so you get together every so often to chat and catch up. He tells you about the vacation he’s planning to Florida, you talk about your boss’s penchant for falling asleep during important meetings, and the two of you trade opinions about which recent Hollywood blockbuster was best.

  Then he brings up art. Heard you were thinking of buying a painting, he says. Before you close the deal on anything, you just have to see what I just bought. It’s perfect! We spent forever looking, but in the end we couldn’t be happier. I think you’ll really like it!

  And you do.

  You walk outside, he opens the garage, and you behold his gleaming new piece. The very same painting you were going to buy.

  Same artist. Same abstract shapes. Same beautiful colors. A couple small differences in layout, but it’s basically the same piece.

  What would you do? Would you still buy the painting you had in mind or would you look around for something else?

  * * *

  Scientists didn’t run this exact experiment (buying paintings would get expensive), but they ran a similar study at a local microbrewery.14

  Two consumer psychologists posed as waiters doing a beer tasting. They offered groups of patrons sitting together the opportunity to sample one of four house beers: a medium-bodied red ale, a golden lager, an India pale ale, and a Bavarian summer-style beer. Patrons picked whichever one they wanted, and were given a free four-ounce sample to try.

  Free beer? Most people were more than happy to participate.

  After drinking the beer, customers answered a couple of questions: How much had they liked the beer? Did they wish they had chosen a different one?

  There was one additional detail. Half of the tables went through the normal ordering process. The waiter gave them a menu, told them about each beer, and then went around the table, one by one, asking people which beer they wanted.

  At the rest of the tables, patrons ordered privately. The waiter still gave them menus, and described each beer, but customers marked down their orders on scraps of paper, folded them, and handed them in so no one else could see what they had ordered.

  The two ordering situations were almost identical. Everyone chose from the same set of beers and received the same information. The only difference was whether people knew what others had selected before making their own choice.

  But when the researchers analyzed the data, they found a striking gap between the two groups. People who knew what others had ordered were much less satisfied with the beer they chose. And they were three times more likely to regret their choice.

  Why? Because many had switched their order to be distinct. They picked a different option than they would normally to avoid ordering the same beer as someone else.

  Consider a group of three guys out for a drink. Paul loves pale ale, Larry has his eye on the lager, and Peter wants in on the pale ale as well. If they order privately, no one has any idea what the others ordered, so they just go ahead and choose what they want. Paul and Peter get the pale ale. Larry gets the lager.

  But if they go around the table, announcing their order one at a time, those who order later can find themselves in a tough position. Paul orders the pale ale, Larry orders the lager, and then it gets to Peter. He’d like to order the pale ale, but given that Paul already picked it, Peter might feel weird about ordering the same beer. Just as you might not want to buy the same painting as your neighbor.

  So Peter might pick a different beer, even though it makes him less happy as a result.I

  Sometimes people don’t want to be the same as everyone else. Sometimes people want to be different.

  I LIKE THEIR OLD STUFF

  Today, professional baseball is a full-time job. In addition to playing over 160 games in 7 months, the off-season is filled with prepping for the next season. Some players lift weights to bulk up while others follow a strict diet in an attempt to slim down. Squadrons of coaches, chefs, and exercise gurus design regimens to optimize performance.

  But it wasn’t always that way. Baseball didn’t used to pay as much, so players had to put down the bat and glove during the off-season and find other ways to support their families. Hall of Famer Casey Stengel drove taxicabs. Pitcher Walter Johnson dug postholes for a telephone company. Shortstop Phil Rizzuto worked at a clothing store.

  Yogi Berra had a job as a greeter and headwaiter at Ruggeri’s, one of the best-known Italian restaurants in St. Louis. Even after he led the Yankees to win the World Series in the 1950s, Berra would don a tuxedo and greet patrons as they entered the restaurant in the off-season.

  As salaries increased, players spent more of the off-season on baseball and less on their other pursuits. It wasn’t worth risking an injury and jeopardizing their main paycheck.

  Ruggeri’s also changed. Elevated both by its reputation for good food and Berra’s celebrity (even though he no longer worked there), the restaurant became more and more famous.

  While the newfound fame was a boon for the restaurant’s owners, others were less excited. Berra, for one, stopped going. When asked why by some of his friends, he replied, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”15

  * * *

  Traditional economics would suggest that what one person chooses shouldn’t be influenced by what others are doing. Choosing art or buying a beer should be based on price and quality. So unless the artist tacks on a couple thousand dollars to the painting’s price or the brewer starts watering down their beer, people’s preferences should remain the same.

  If anything, people should imitate others. Just like the people trying to guess how far a point of light moved in a dark room, others’ choices provide information. The more people who picked something, the better that thing must be. Otherwise, why would so many people pick it? If popularity signals quality, people should pick whatever is popular. We should be more likely to do something when others are already doing it.

  But that doesn’t always happen. Just like Ruggeri’s, people often avoid things when too many other people like them.

  “Snob effects” describe cases in which an individual’s demand for goods or services is negatively correlated with market demand. The more other people who own or use something, the less interested new people are in buying or using it.

  Most of us don’t want to be the only one doing something, but if too many people start doing it, we go ahead and do something else. When kale or quinoa becomes too tr
endy, there’s a backlash. And when everyone starts talking about how dots are the new stripes, some of the initial dot wearers move on. Even if it means giving up something they like because others like it as well.

  In some instances, the reason is rather practical. Restaurants aren’t fun when they’re too overcrowded. You have to wait longer to get a table or call further in advance to make a reservation. It’s hard to enjoy your meal when you have to yell to be heard above the chatter.

  But it’s more complicated than that.

  Talk to a music lover about a band that just became popular, and they might respond with a familiar refrain: Asian Spider Monkey? I like their old stuff. Their early albums before they sold out and became so commercial. They had a more authentic sound then. It had more edge to it and was less poppy. It was more real.

  Now, it’s possible that Asian Spider Monkey’s early music was truly better. While some artists mature, many run out of good ideas.

  But how likely is it that the Beatles, Madonna, and many other successful artists actually sounded better before they became popular? Ever heard someone say they like an unpopular band’s early stuff?

  While it’s possible that popularity is creativity-sucking kryptonite, there’s a more likely explanation. Regardless of whether its music changes, when a band becomes popular, liking it makes people less unique. If you were one of the twelve bystanders who happened to catch one of Asian Spider Monkey’s first coffeehouse shows, you’re in a small, select group. No one had heard of them, so—unlike saying you like Dave Matthews Band or Beethoven—saying you liked the Spider Monkey’s lilting, offbeat sound was a badge of distinction. People might have thought you were talking about The Wizard of Oz, or a weird primate infestation, but liking Asian Spider Monkey made you stand out. It might have been an infestation, but it was your infestation, and yours alone.

  But if Asian Spider Monkey gets popular, all bets are off.

  When they hit the cover of Rolling Stone, lots of people start listening. Everyone from indie music heads to fair weather fans. And now a band that was yours and yours alone is everyone’s. What once was a sign of uniqueness is now generic and widespread.

  What’s a true Asian Spider Monkey fan to do?

  One option is to drop the band completely. To throw out your concert T-shirt and delete their songs from your playlist.

  But that’s a bit drastic. After all, you still like their music. And you were there first!

  So, rather than dropping the band, many people find a way to maintain their allegiance while finding a new source of distinction: saying they prefer the older stuff.

  By saying they like the Spider Monkey’s early music, people can maintain their fandom and still be different. And they can one-up all the Johnny-come-lately listeners with an additional source of social currency. Not only do they like the popular band’s stuff, just like everyone else, but they are so in the know that they knew about the band before everyone else.

  In some instances, a backlash starts even before the thing gets popular. The mere hint that something is gaining steam is enough to make some people dislike it. Might as well get there first before everyone else does.II

  WHY DIFFERENCE?

  When America sits down to turkey and stuffing every Thanksgiving, most people give little thought to where this holiday came from. If encouraged to think about it, we conjure up what we learned in kindergarten: Pilgrims and Indians, or Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. But beyond the cranberry sauce and prim white bonnets, these early settlers actually had a surprisingly strong impact on American values today.

  In September 1620, some one hundred people set sail from England to the New World seeking religious freedom. Many were part of the English Separatist church, a radical Puritan faction that was unhappy with the limited extent of the Reformation and what they saw as the Roman Catholic practices of the Church of England. After a stint in the Netherlands, these Protestants were looking for a new place to settle. Somewhere with better economic prospects and where they would not lose the English language.

  At the time, the clergy mediated almost all relationships between individuals and God. Priests were the only people who had a direct line to the holy. They gave out penance and absolution, interpreted and supplemented scripture, and generally acted as intermediaries. Ritual and ceremony ruled the day.

  These early Americans, and the ones that arrived soon after, had a different view. They wanted to empower the common person to take control over his or her destiny, both in the next world, and this one as well.

  Rather than simply take the word of priests, they called for men and women to study the Bible and interpret it for themselves. Every person could communicate directly with God through his or her faith, and every person could be his or her own priest. Instead of mindlessly following authority, people were encouraged to think and feel for themselves. To be independent.16

  * * *

  This notion of independence, or individualism, proved impactful. It shaped not only the settlers’ religious beliefs, but how they interacted with their peers. It influenced not only the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Harbor whom we celebrate today) but also the broader roots of American culture that grew from this early seed.

  People were free to pursue their own ends, independently of others. To make their own path and go their own way.

  Years later, when French historian Alexis de Tocqueville surveyed the New World’s burgeoning democratic order, individualism was one of the key themes that emerged. Not a negative selfishness or egotism but “a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows.”17 This carried through the Declaration of Independence and the protection of civil liberties outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. People’s right to be free of undue influence, and to make their own choices.

  To this day, questions of individual independence underlie most of the country’s political discourse. How far should the government go to protect people’s right to express their individual opinions? At what point does protecting one individual’s freedom impinge on another’s?

  Given the historical premium placed on independence and autonomy, it’s not surprising that Americans have come to value differentiation. The freedom to do something different than one’s peers. Whether that difference comes in interpreting the word of God or picking a different beer.III

  Rather than reflecting external considerations, in America, choice is seen as reflecting one’s inner preferences, one’s personal wants and desires. But with that freedom comes added responsibility. If choice reflects who someone is, it becomes even more important to choose in culturally significant ways. Clothes are not just clothes, they’re a statement of who we are. And how better to express independence than to choose something different.

  Imagine showing up to a party wearing the same dress as another guest. Or going to work one day and finding yourself wearing the exact same tie as your boss.

  Most people would be a good sport about it and laugh, but they’d also probably be embarrassed or find the situation mildly uncomfortable. Because, whether due to one person or one million, feeling overly similar to others often generates a negative emotional reaction. It makes people upset or uneasy.

  So we choose things that create a sense of difference. Brands that no one else has heard of or apartments in areas that have yet to become gentrified. Limited-edition T-shirts or vacations to obscure Polynesian islands that are only reachable by outrigger canoe.18

  Distinction even helps explains the adoption of niche high-tech gadgets. Google Glass was supposed to be the future of wearable computing. An optical head-mounted display that placed a small screen in the user’s field of vision, it was labeled one of the best inventions of 2012. It promised to take notes, snap pictures, or get directions, all while being hands-free and liberating people to do what they do best.

  This promise, however, ran into obstacles. There were priva
cy concerns and ethical questions about recording people without their permission. Studies raised issue with the device being distracting and states moved to ban Glass while driving. Some early adopters bragged so much that wearers were termed “glassho%$s” for showing off. Soon, Google Glass began to be seen as a solution in search of a problem (rather than the other way around).

  Yet, with all these flaws, people still clamored for the device. They angled for an invite (it was never publicly available) or bid close to $100,000 just to get their hands on one.

  Because buying Glass was more than just about whether it was useful or not. For high-tech innovators, the newest gadget isn’t just a productivity tool, it’s a tool for differentiation. A way to show they are ahead of everyone else: Other people might look, act, and sound the same, but not me! I’m a rugged individualist. I’m a special snowflake. I’m different.

  WHO ARE YOU?

  There are often rewards for being different. Being more attractive gets you more dates. Being taller gets you picked earlier in pickup basketball.

  But uniqueness is about more than just being better than others. Sure, standing out in a positive way feels good. Getting asked out frequently or being picked first makes people feel special. But it’s more than that.

  Suppose you just got a new job. The first day is orientation and you and the other new hires start by doing a little getting to know each other. An icebreaker to begin the day. The group goes around the room, people introduce themselves, and say a little bit about who they are.

  I’m a thirty-six-year-old mother of two.

  I’m a Baltimore native who loves the Orioles.

  I’m the son of a doctor and an art historian.

  How would you introduce yourself? More fundamentally, who are you?