by Jonah Berger
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People diverge to avoid being misidentified or communicating undesired identities. Students ate less candy when they saw an obese person eating a lot, and professionals stopped calling their children Jr. once the practice was adopted by the working class. Minivan sales tanked when they became associated with soccer moms, and tech CEOs wear hoodies rather than suits to avoid looking like, well, a suit.6
Misidentification is costly. Wearing a shirt with an indie band like Asian Spider Monkey emblazoned across the front is a great signal. It helps you meet other people that like the same music and maybe even find the perfect mate. (“You like them, too?!”)
But if fashionistas start wearing the shirt because they’ve heard the band is the next big thing, the T-shirt loses its value as a signal. Not only are you no longer unique, but observers don’t know whether someone wearing the shirt is an indie rock fan or a fashionista. Whether he loves guitar riffs or Prada’s new spring collection. As a result, indie rock fans who wear the shirt may be ignored by potential mates and friends. And they may have to endure people coming up to them wanting to talk about whether black is really the new black.
Misidentification leads us to miss out on desired interactions and endure undesired ones. Even worse, it may lead people to think someone is a poser. A wannabe who copies the style of a subculture but isn’t part of it.
Not all misidentification, though, is equal. Think about political affiliations or other groups arrayed on a spectrum. Moving from left to right there are Radicals (far left), Liberals, Moderates, Conservatives, and Reactionaries (far right). Members of each group would prefer to be correctly identified and not confused with other groups. But the penalty of confusion gets larger the further away groups are from one another. Sure, most self-identified liberals would prefer not to be thought of as moderates, but being seen as a conservative would be much worse. And conservatives feel the same way about liberals.
The greater the dissimilarity, then, the greater the cost of misidentification. It’s never ideal to be thought of as someone you’re not, but the more dissimilar the mistaken identity is, the worse it gets. Most twenty-five-year-olds don’t want to seem like they’re thirty, but they really don’t want to seem like they’re thirty-five (or seventeen).
The further the mistaken identity, the higher the cost. Seeming that much younger may lead to missed promotions and not being taken seriously. And seeming that much older may lead to being left off party invitations or emails to join that new kickball league. The further from reality, the more detrimental the misidentification.
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Rather than group identities per se, though, divergence is more about the subtle social characteristics that certain signals convey. Teenagers are unlikely to be confused with forty-year-old business executives, and grizzled members of a motorcycle gang are unlikely to be mistaken for balding accountants. But if accountants start driving Harleys to seem tough, people who see someone driving a Harley will be more likely to infer that the rider shares characteristics with accountants.
Imagine you’re eating dinner at Hoffbrau Steakhouse. This family-owned and -operated steakhouse has locations all over Texas, from Amarillo to Dallas. And as one might expect from a Texas steakhouse, Hoffbrau’s serves a meat-heavy menu. From the bacon-wrapped filet to the Texas Two Step dinner for two (dual sirloin steaks served on a bed of grilled onions), Hoffbrau’s has everything to satisfy even the hungriest cowboy. All grass-fed, hand-cut, seasoned, and grilled to perfection.
You decide on the Smoked Sirloin. Hickory smoked and pepper crusted, it sounds delicious. There’s only one choice left: Which size?
You’re not feeling all that hungry, and when you look at the menu you see two options: the 12-ounce cut and the 8-ounce Ladies’ Cut. Which would you choose? The 12-ounce or the Ladies’ Cut ?
For women, this choice is easy. You’d probably pick the Ladies’ Cut. Indeed, when researchers gave women a similar choice, around 80 percent of women chose the Ladies’ Cut steak.
But what if you’re a guy?
You’re not that hungry, so you’d probably prefer the smaller steak. Heck, the 12-ounce serving isn’t just a couple bites more than the 8-ounce one. It’s 50 percent more steak. The choice should be simple, right?
After all, a steak is just a steak. People aren’t going to think a guy is a woman just because he orders a Ladies’ Cut. So guys should have nothing to worry about.
But when consumer psychologists gave men this choice, 95 percent chose the larger steak.7 And it’s not because they somehow decided they were hungrier than they thought. When researchers relabeled the smaller steak the “Chef’s Cut,” men were more than happy to chose the smaller size. Men avoided the Ladies’ Cut steak because they were worried about being perceived as less masculine.
ACTING WHITE
Growing up in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1980s, Sidney had always done well in school. He wasn’t the smartest kid in every class, but he usually did better than most of his peers. His report card was a consistent mix of As and Bs, and his standardized test scores were similarly high. When he took a basic skills test in ninth grade, Sidney scored well above his grade level, reaching college level in science, social studies, and language, and almost college level in reading and math.
By the time he reached eleventh grade, though, Sidney’s teachers noticed a disturbing disconnect. Sidney’s aptitude was there, but his performance was not. While his standardized test scores remained high, Sidney’s grades fizzled, dropping to a C average.
His teachers knew Sidney could do better. He just wasn’t putting in the effort. Why wasn’t Sidney living up to his potential?
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The racial achievement gap has been well documented. Whether you look at standardized test scores, dropout rates, grade point averages, or college enrollment and completion, African-American (and Hispanic) students often do not score as highly as their white counterparts. On the largest nationally representative assessment of American students, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, African-American students score around 10 percent lower on both reading and math.8 (Like many of the ideas discussed, these are averages, not absolutes, but, given their persistence, one key to fixing them is understanding why they arise and persist.)
There are numerous reasons for this gap. One is resources. Minority students are more likely to attend underfunded schools. Differential treatment, or discrimination, also plays a role. Whether explicitly or implicitly, some teachers and school administrators set lower standards, are less likely to call on minority students, and more likely to assign them to remedial classes, all of which hurt student achievement.
But, in addition to these traditional explanations, there is an even more complex one.
In the mid-1980s, Professors Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu studied the link between race and academic achievement in a Washington, D.C., high school. The school, given the pseudonym Capitol High, was located in a low-income area of the city, and Sidney was one of the students there. Like every school, Capitol High had a mix of students. Some who did well and some who underperformed.
But when Fordham and Ogbu delved into academic performance, they noticed that identity signaling played a pivotal role. Black students who got good grades or took advanced courses were often ridiculed by their peers for “acting white” or being “Oreos” (black on the outside, white in the middle). Spending time in the library, studying hard, or trying to get good grades was labeled as “white,” and thus unacceptable.
The notion that academic excellence was somehow inconsistent with African-American identity was extremely destructive. Like Sidney, many black students had the ability to do well in school, but stopped working hard because they didn’t want to be ostracized by their peers.
Students who did perform well worked to camouflage their success. They pretended to be dumb or acted like class clowns so no one could claim that they were trying too hard. One high-achieving student begrudgingly to
ok a test for the school’s It’s Academic team on the condition that even if she scored high enough to make the team, she would not participate. She ended up having one of the highest scores but still stayed away.
As Fordham and Ogbu noted:
Black Americans . . . began to define academic success as white people’s prerogative, and began to discourage their peers, perhaps unconsciously, from emulating white people in academic striving, i.e. “acting white.”
Not surprisingly, this idea sparked controversy.9 And Fordham and Ogbu’s findings are not without their detractors.
But more recent analyses have provided further support for this idea. Two economists analyzed a nationally representative sample of almost one hundred thousand students and found that the link between school performance and popularity varied by race.10 For white children, higher grades were associated with higher social status. White students who got all As tended to be more popular than white students who got a mix of As and Bs.
But the relationship between grades and popularity differed for minority students. Blacks and Hispanics who got all As in school tended to be less popular than their peers. Consistent with the notion of acting white, minority students who succeed in school seemed to pay a social penalty for investing in education.
Skin tone also plays a role. If trying hard is seen as “acting white,” minority students who look more like whites should be more susceptible to teasing, and try harder to avoid sending undesired signals. Compared to their darker peers, lighter-skinned students might be more concerned about being perceived as “acting white,” and, as a result, may not work as hard.
Indeed, light-skinned African-American boys not only feel less socially accepted than their dark-skinned peers, they do worse in school, scoring almost a half a GPA point lower.11 Latino boys who looked less Latino were more disruptive in class, less likely to complete homework assignments, and had lower grade point averages overall.12
And it’s not just about race. Despite great advances, women are still underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). While women make up almost 60 percent of college graduates, they make up only 24 percent of the workforce in these areas.13
But, in addition to resources, discrimination, and other factors, identity signaling also plays a role.14 Research finds that one reason women are less interested in pursuing fields like math, science, and computer science is because of the identity they associate with those fields. Women think of computer science as dominated by geeky guys who love Star Trek and video games. And because that is not an identity to which most women aspire, they may avoid these careers and pursue something else. Identity concerns lead many talented and qualified women who could be great computer scientists or engineers to choose other fields.
Identity signaling even affects whether parents pass on HIV to their children.
In South Africa, billions of dollars have been spent combating HIV and AIDS, yet every year thousands of babies are still born with the virus. Part of the challenge is making sure the right drugs reach remote hospitals across the country, but the most difficult challenge is psychological. Expecting mothers refuse the drugs that might save their babies’ lives because they don’t want to admit that they are HIV positive. Others infect their children through breast-feeding because they refuse to bottle-feed only, a signal in some regions that you have HIV. Improving public health thus requires more than good medicine. It requires understanding the complex calculus of stigma and meaning.
WHEN PEOPLE DIVERGE
These findings are striking, but one question is why they tend to appear in some areas of life more than others. African-American aren’t teased for “acting white” when they use the same pens as Caucasian students and men don’t seem to mind using the same brand of paper towels or refrigerators as women. Criminals eat bread, yet that doesn’t seem to have stopped the rest of us from eating it. So when is divergence more likely to happen and why?
Just like the nature of divergence itself, the answer lies in the communication of identity. Some choices signal identity more than others.
Take cars. Imagine you’re about to meet someone you’ve never met before and a friend tells you that this person drives a Volvo station wagon. What might you infer about them? Do you have any sense of what they might be like?
What car someone drives doesn’t tell you everything about them, but it does suggest certain things (liberalness, for example).
Compare that with paper towels. If someone uses Bounty paper towels, how much does that say about them? Does that provide much insight into whether they are liberal or conservative? Whether they live on the coasts or Middle America? Probably not.
That’s because certain choices are seen as more relevant to identity than others.
Part of identity relevance comes down to observability. Unless you snoop around someone’s house, it’s hard to see what kind of paper towels or dish soap they use. Which makes it hard to use those choices as signals of identity.
What someone wears or drives, though, is much easier to see, and thus much more likely to be used for identity inferences.
Choices are also seen as more identity relevant the less they are based on function. Which paper towels or dish soap someone chooses depends a lot on functional benefits. How well do the paper towels clean? Do they hold up or do they fall apart when you try to use them? For these, and many similar choices, utility is primary. As a result, people don’t infer much about identity based on those choices.
But other choices are based less on function and more on taste. Compared to paper towels, hairstyles are not really based on function. Same with cars, for the most part. Sure, a brand-new car is more reliable than a beat-up jalopy. And some cars get better gas mileage than others or seat more people. But most cars will get you from point A to point B just fine. When personal taste dictates choices, we are more likely to infer identity from these choices.
And it’s only when choices are seen as signals of identity that people tend to diverge. If people don’t infer anything about you based on what paper towels you buy, it doesn’t matter who else is buying them. Geeks or hipsters, women or men, you could care less. Criminals might love Bounty and it still wouldn’t change your behavior. There’s no need to abandon them based on who else they are associated with.
THE $300,000 WATCH THAT DOESN’T TELL TIME
Every spring, movers and shakers in the watch industry converge on Basel, Switzerland, for Baselworld, the industry’s annual international expo. Located where the Swiss, French, and German borders meet, Basel is the perfect location for the blend of style and precision that makes up the watch industry. More than one hundred thousand attendees come to view the industry’s latest and greatest innovations, from the newest Rolexes to breakthroughs in multifunction operability.
In 2008, Baselworld visitors were treated to a special announcement. Renowned Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome was releasing something unique. As part of its DNA of Famous Legends collection, Jerome had previously offered a Moon Dust–DNA watch made from fragments of the Apollo 11 and Soyuz space shuttles. Each watch dial featured tiny craters, filled with dust from actual moon rocks and the watch straps were made of fibers from spacesuits worn on the international space station. At more than $15,000, the Moon Dust watches were not cheap.
But Romain Jerome’s new watch topped that by a hefty margin. It sported a price tag of $300,000.
Called Day & Night, this new release was extremely high end. Made in part from steel salvaged from the Titanic, the watch contained not one, but two separate tourbillions, designed to combat the negative effects of earth’s gravity on a watch’s accuracy.
There was only one sticking point. Not a sticking point exactly, more like a noteworthy detail.
The watch didn’t tell time.
As the company’s website boasted, “With no display for the hours, minutes or seconds, the Day & Night offers a new way of measuring time, splitting the universe of time into
two fundamentally opposing sections: day versus night.” Okay, it told time, but only in terms of whether it was light or dark out.
Useless for most people but perfect for the billionaire who never goes outside and has everything except windows in their house. The watch sold out in less than forty-eight hours.
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It’s easy to laugh at the folly of the super-rich, but they aren’t alone. German watchmaker Erich Lacher takes a similar approach with its Abacus watch. A relative steal at $150, the watch keeps time through a single free-floating ball bearing reminiscent of the maze games you might have played as a kid. When the watch face is parallel to the ground and kept perfectly still, a magnet will pull the bearing to the correct position on the watch, revealing the time. Otherwise it’s anyone’s guess.
Watches that don’t tell time are just one example of afunctional products, or items that directly violate their functional purpose. Single-speed or fixed-gear bicycles are another.
San Francisco is a great biking city. There are lots of hills, but the weather is good and bike lanes are prevalent. There are bikers everywhere. People biking to work, people biking for exercise, and people biking to get wherever they happen to be going.
Take a closer look at some of the bikes, though, and you’ll notice something surprising: Many have only one gear. Sure, there are mountain bikes with ten gears and fancier road bikes with twenty-one or even twenty-seven speeds for navigating the toughest hills. But look at what most hipsters are riding and you’ll notice they have only one gear. Some are even riding fixies, or fixed-gear bikes where the motion of the pedals is fixed to the motion of the back wheel. When the rear wheel turns, the pedals turn with it, meaning that the rider can’t stop pedaling if they want to move forward. And there are no brakes. The only way to brake is by resisting the rotation of the pedals by using your legs to slow the bike’s motion down.
