social proof — Archive — Bad Decisions

A very hungry Laurence from Elizabeth Bay wants to know why more people don’t just cross the street.

Dan: 00:17 Hey, and welcome to Bad Decisions Mini Episode two, I am your host Dan Monheit co-founder of Hardhat. And for those who are new to this format, we are taking a little period while Mel is off raising a small child and we are using it to get through some of the amazing questions that we have received over the years. Today's question, this is an absolute classic and this comes from Laurence in Elizabeth Bay.

Laurence: 00:40 Hey Dan, it's Laurence from Elizabeth Bay here. There's this weird thing that happens when I go out for dinner with my wife and we'll be walking down the street and looking for a restaurant to eat at and I always want to go to the empty restaurants so we can get our food quickly, but my wife always wants to go to the full restaurants and line up in these queues and we usually do what my wife wants in the end, but I just can't work out why she likes to do that.

Dan: 01:00 First up Laurence. I got to say, I love this question because for a guy who spends most of his time looking at and thinking about weird irrational behaviors that we exhibit as humans, standing outside a full restaurant while an empty restaurant waits for us to cross the street has got to be somewhere near the top of the list, right? Because if we were pragmatic, rational economic beings and all we wanted to do is feed ourselves in the most efficient way possible this is definitely not the way we would go about it. So, there clearly must be something else at play here. What is at play here is actually one of the most impactful heuristics in the whole arsenal and it is something called social proof and social proof essentially relates to the idea that we are social creatures or herd creatures by design.

Dan: 01:46 And if you look at this from a biological physical level, our brains are literally wired to copy what other people do. So, if you think about how we learned to walk or talk as babies, it is not going to the library, it is not watching YouTube. It is looking at grownups around us and trying to imitate them and this doesn't stop when we're no longer toddlers. If you think about the last time you were in a weird new uncomfortable environment so, it might've been at a gallery opening or a very fancy restaurant or a religious ceremony where you're not particularly familiar with what's going on, we tend to look around and see what everyone else is doing and we rightly or wrongly conclude that well, if that's what everybody else is doing, then that is probably the right, the correct, the appropriate, the safe thing to do and I should do it as well.

Dan: 02:26 Perhaps the most interesting and I would say terrifying research done into social proof comes from Solomon Asch in 1951. And Solomon Asch was one of the forefathers of early behavioral science studies and he spent a lot of his time researching the ways that people made decisions together versus individually. And he designed this really clever experiment where what he would do is he would bring students into a lab and tell the students that they were there as part of an eye test. And when the students walked into the room for their alleged eye test, there were seven other people or participants already in the room. Now, the student believed that these people were also here for eye tests. What they didn't know is this other seven people were actually working for the researchers and they were what we call Confederates.

Dan: 03:11 So, the student comes in, sits down and then the researcher explains to them here's how the artist is going to work. There are going to be 18 rounds of this test and for each test, we're going to show you three lines of different length so, let's say an A line, a B line and a C line, we are then going to show you a target line and you are going to have to say, which of the three sample lines A, B or C does the target line most closely match. And let me tell you guys, the answer was always quite obvious. Now what the student didn't know was that the other seven participants had been instructed that on 12 of the 18 occasions to all give the same wrong answer. So, you can imagine you've walked in, you've had this test explained to you, they hold up the three sample lines, they hold up the target line.

Dan: 03:55 The target line clearly matches sample line A and they go around the room and you hear, which is the closest match? B, B, B, B, B, B, B and now it's your turn to answer what would you say? If you were anything like one third of the participants, you would conform every single time. That's right, 33% of participants conformed every time and 75% of participants conformed at least once. So, this is university educated, intelligent people giving an answer that was clearly incorrect to a question that was very easy, simply because they'd had seven other random people give the same wrong answer before they did. And from here Solomon Asch and his team of researchers and us were able to conclude that not only is being part of the group important, but often being together is more important than being right.

Dan: 04:49 So, social proof is why the leading online retailers like the guys at Kogan.com have little pop-ups that show you that other people are currently also shopping on this website. It's why news publications will tell you how many other people are currently reading this article or its why hotels and flight booking websites will tell you how many other people are currently looking at these deals right now. All of these are not so subtle cues that you are with the group, lots of other people are doing what you're doing and you should just continue along the path. So, really the key takeaway for brands here and how to make the most out of social proof is to show prospective customers the people who are already just like them have done the thing that we're asking them to do.

Dan: 05:28 So, Laurence there you have it. Social proof is why your wife insists on waiting outside full restaurants. Chances are it's probably going to be a pretty good meal and hopefully you will enjoy the atmosphere of being in a packed restaurant rather than empty one more as well. I bet dear listeners as if you guys have got some weird interesting quirky human behavior that you have observed and you would love my take on why it is happening. Please hit me up with your emails or your social media messages, you can hit me up @DanMonheit across most of the internet or askdan@hardhat.com.au. We'll be back in two weeks and by we I mean I. It's so lonely.