Invisible Influence (31 page)

14.
 Flavell, John, P. Miller, and S. Miller (1985),
Cognitive Development
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall), 101–17; and McCall, Robert, and Paul McGhee (1977), “The Discrepancy Hypothesis of Attention and Affect in Infants,” in
The Structuring of Experience
, eds. I. Uzgiris and F. Weizmann (New York: Plenum), 79–210.

15.
 Simonton, Dean (2006), “Thematic Fame and Melodic Originality in Classical Music: A Multivariate Computer-Content Analysis,”
Journal of Personality
48, 206–19.

16.
 Uzzi, Brian, S. Mukherjee, M. Stringer, and B. Jones (2013), “Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact,”
Science
342, 468–72.

17.
 Chan, Cindy, Jonah Berger, and Leaf Van Boven (2012), “Identifiable but Not Identical: Combining Social Identity and Uniqueness Motives in Choice,”
Journal of Consumer Research
39, 561–73.

18.
 This study was actually run in 2005, before the advent of most of the online surveys that are popular today. Almost everyone believed the manipulation and some actually expressed sadness that the budgets for academic research were so low.

19.
 Berger, Michael L. (1980),
The Devil Wagon in God's Country: The Automobile and Social Change in Rural America, 1893–1929
(Hamden, CT: Archon).

20.
 Rindova, Violina P., and Antoaneta P. Petkova (2007), “When Is a New Thing a Good Thing? The Effects of Technological Change and Product Design on Customer Perceptions of Value Created by Product Innovations,”
Organization Science
18, 217–32; Hargadon, Andrew B., and Yellowlees Douglas (2001), “When Innovations Meet Institutions: Edison and the Design of the Electric Light,”
Administrative Science Quarterly
46, 476–501.

21.
 These items are often called skeumorphs, or objects that retain design cues or visual aspects from the object on which they are based.

5.
Come On Baby, Light My Fire

1.
 Triplett, Norman (1898), “The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competition,”
American Journal of Psychology
9, 507–33; Strube, Michael (2005), “What Did Triplett Really Find? A Contemporary Analysis of the First Experiment in Social Psychology,”
American Journal of Psychology
118, 271–86; and Brehm, Sharon, S. Kassin, and S. Fein (1999),
Social Psychology
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin).

2.
 Triplett proposed a number of theories to explain this pattern. Everything from something he called “suction theory” (essentially the aerodynamics that are created by having one rider break the wind) to “encouragement theory” (riding with someone else keeps one's spirits up) to something he called “brain worry theory” (that when people race alone or are leading a race, part of their mind is worried about whether they are going fast enough to win). But the theory he gave the most credence to was something he called “dynamogenic factors”: that the presence of another rider aroused the competitive instinct and inspired racers to greater effort.

3.
 Allport, Floyd (1920), “The Influence of the Group upon Association and Thought,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology
3, 159.

4.
 Bruce, R. (1941), “An Experimental Analysis of Social Factors Affecting the Performance of White Rats. I. Performance in Learning a Simple Field Situation,”
Journal of Comparative Psychology
31,
363–77; Simmel, Edward (1962), “Social Facilitation of Exploratory Behavior in Rats,”
Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
5, 831–33; Stamm, John (1961), “Social Facilitation in Monkeys,”
Psychological Reports
8, 479–84; Scott, John, and C. McCray (1967), “Allelomimetic Behavior in Dogs: Negative Effects of Competition on Social Facilitation,”
Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
63, 316–19; Chen, Shisan (1937), “Social Modification of the Activity of Ants in Nest-Building,”
Physiological Zoology
10, 420–36; and Bayer, E. (1929), “Beitrage zur Zweikomponentheorie des Hungers,”
Zeitschrift für Psychologie
112, 1–S4.

5.
 Pessin, Joseph (1933), “The Comparative Effects of Social and Mechanical Stimulation on Memorizing,”
American Journal of Psychology,
45, 263–70; Pessin, Joseph, and Richard Husband (1933), “Effects of Social Stimulation on Human Maze Learning,”
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
28, 148–54; and Rosenbloom, Tova, S. Amit, A. Perlman, D. Estreich, and E. Kirzner (2007), “Success on a Practical Driver's License Test with and Without the Presence of Another Testee,”
Accident Analysis & Prevention
39, 1296–301.

6.
 Klopfer, Peter (1958), “Influence of Social Interaction on Learning Rates in Birds,”
Science
128, 903–4; Alee, W., and R. Masure (1936), “A Comparison of Maze Behavior in Paired and Isolated Shell Parakeets (Melopsittacus undulatus Shaw),”
Journal of Comparative Psychology
22, 131–55.

7.
 Fox, Margalit (2008), “Robert Zajonc, Who Looked at Mind's Ties to Actions, Is Dead at 85,”
New York Times,
A42; Gorlick, Adam (2008), “Robert Zajonc, Pioneer of Social Psychology, Dies at 85,
Stanford News
, December 11,
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/january7/zajobit-010709.html
; Burnstein, Eugene (2009), “Robert B. Zajonc (1923–2008),”
American Psychologist
64, 558–59.

8.
 Zajonc, Robert, A. Heingart, and E. Herman (1969), “Social Enhancement and Impairment of Performance in the Cockroach,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
13, 83. For a review, see Zajonc, Robert, “Social Facilitation,”
Science
149, 269–74.

9.
 Markus, Hazel (1978), “The Effect of Mere Presence on Social Facilitation: An Unobtrusive Test,”
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
14, 389–97.

10.
 Michaels, J. W, J. M. Blommel, R. M. Brocato, R. A. Linkous, and J. S. Rowe (1982). “Social Facilitation and Inhibition in a Natural Setting,”
Replications in Social Psychology
2, 21–24.

11.
 To this day, there are still competing theories about what drives social facilitation. Some, like Zajonc's major theoretical advance in 1965, focus on drives. The presence of others acts as a source of arousal, or activation, which enhances the emission of a dominant response. For well-learned tasks, that dominant response is correct, so we do better. Michaels, J. W, J. M. Blommel, R. M. Brocato, R. A. Linkous, and J. S. Rowe (1982), “Social Facilitation and Inhibition in a Natural Setting,”
Replications in Social Psychology
2, 21–24.

12.
 Social facilitation can also happen when people feel like others are present (i.e., in the presence of a picture of someone), even if no one else is physically there.

13.
 Cudy, Amy, K. Doherty, and M. Bos (2010), “OPOWER: Increasing Energy Efficiency Through Normative Influence (A),”
Harvard Business School Case 911–016
.

14.
 Nolan, Jessica, P. Schultz, R. Cialdini, N. Goldstein, and V. Griskevicius (2008), “Normative Social Influence Is Underdetected,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
7, 913–23; Cialdini, Robert, and Wesley Schultz (2004), “Understanding and Motivating Energy Conservation via Social Norms,” report submitted to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 1–6.

15.
 Allcott, Hunt (2011), “Social norms and energy conservation,”
Journal of Public Economics
95, 1082–95.

16.
 “Opower Utility Partners Save Six Terawatt-Hours of Energy, over $700 Million for Consumers,” Opower press release, Jannuary 14, 2015,
https://opower.com/company/news-press/press_releases/114
.

17.
 Berger, Jonah, and Devin Pope (2011), “Can Losing Lead to Winning?”
Management Science
57, 817–27. That losing leads to winning is particularly noteworthy here, given the stakes. NBA players get paid to play basketball. And while they don't get paid for each game they win, like most jobs, over the course of their careers, they get paid based on performance. The more their teams win, the more they ultimately get paid. Yet, even with all these millions at stake, losing still leads to winning.

18.
 This problem was adapted from Heath, Chip, Richard Larrick, and George Wu (1999), “Goals as Reference Points,”
Cognitive Psychology
38, 79–109.

19.
 Notably, round numbers often serve as salient reference points, motivating people to work hard until they achieve them. High school students, for example, are more likely to retake the SAT if they score just below, rather than just above, a round number.
Students who score a 990, for instance, are much more likely to retake the test than people who score 1000, even though the scores are almost the same. See Pope, Devin, and Uri Simonsohn (2011), “Round Numbers as Goals Evidence from Baseball, SAT Takers and the Lab,”
Psychological Science
22, 71–78.

20.
 Page, Lionel (2009), “The Momentum Effect in Competitions: Field Evidence from Tennis Matches,” Econometric Society Australasian Meeting, Australian National University, Canberra, July 7–10, 2009 (unpublished).

21.
 Kivetz, Ran, O. Urminsky, and Y. Zheng (2006), “The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis Resurrected: Purchase Acceleration, Illusionary Goal Progress, and Customer Retention,”
Journal of Marketing Research
43, 39–58.

22.
 Brown, Judson (1948), “Gradients of Approach and Avoidance Responses and Their Relation to Level of Motivation,”
Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
41, 450–65; Hull, Clark L. (1932), “The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis and Maze Learning,”
Psychological Review
39, 25–43; and Hull, C., (1934), “The Rats' Speed of Locomotion Gradient in the Approach to Food,”
Journal of Comparative Psychology
17, 393–422.

23.
 Fershtman, C., and U. Gneezy (2011), “The Trade-off between Performance and Quitting in High-Power Tournaments,”
Journal of the European Economic Association
9, 318–36. Quitting is particularly likely when direct comparison is facilitated. When competitors can easily see how they are doing relative to one another, that should increase the chance that people who are slightly behind will get motivated, but also that people who are far behind recognize their position and give up.

24.
 Tuckfield, Bradford, D. Berkeley, K. Milkman, and M. Schweitzer, “Quitting: The Downside of Great Expectations in Competitions,” Wharton School Working Paper (under revision).

25.
 Rogers, Todd, and Don Moore (2014), “The Motivating Power of Under-Confidence: ‘The Race Is Close but We're Losing,' ”
HKS Working Paper No. RWP14-047.

26.
 Irwin, Neil (2015), “Why a Presidential Campaign Is the Ultimate Start-up,”
New York Times
, June 4, BU1.

Conclusion: Putting Social Influence to Work

1.
 There is a huge literature on neighborhood effects. For some recent reviews, see Leventhal, Tama, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (2000), “The Neighborhoods They Live In: The Effects of
Neighborhood Residence on Child and Adolescent Outcomes,”
Psychological Bulletin
126, 309–37; and Sampson, Robert, K. Morenoff, and T. Gannon-Rowley (2002), “ ‘Assessing Neighborhood Effects': Social Processes and New Directions in Research,”
Annual Review of Sociology
, 443–78.

2.
 The answer, of course, is not an either-or. Genetics and family factors may predispose people to have certain challenges that neighborhoods then exacerbate. Lower-income families may be less able to pay for kids' ADHD medicine, and local schools may be less equipped to give such children the necessary personal attention. Similarly, resources allow people to overcome challenges as they arise. Higher-income areas not only have better schools, but parents can more easily pay for tutoring if their kids aren't doing well.

3.
 Kling, Jeffrey, J. Liebman, and L. Katz (2007), “Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects,”
Econclusionometrica
75, 83–119; Ludwig, Jens, G. Duncan, L. Gennetian, L. Katz, R. Kessler, J. Kling, and L. Sanbonmatsu (2013), “Long-Term Neighborhood Effects on Low-Income Families: Evidence from Moving to Opportunity,”
National Bureau of Econclusionomic Research Working Paper No. 18772
; Katz, Lawrence, J. Kling, J. Liebman (2000), “Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Result of a Randomized Mobility Experiment,”
National Bureau of Econclusionomic Research Working Paper Number 7973
; Ludwig, Jens, G. Duncan, L. Gennetian, L. Katz, R. Kessler, J. Kling, and L. Sanbonmatsu (2012), “Neighborhood Effects on the Long-term Well-being of Low-Income Adults,”
Science
337, 1505–10.

4.
 Chetty, Raj, N. Hendren, and L. Katz (2015), “The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment,”
National Bureau of Econclusionomic Research Working Paper Number 21156
; Chetty, Raj, and Nathaniel Hendren (2015),“The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility: Childhood Exposure Effects and County-Level Estimates,” working paper.

5.
 The positive effect of moving on income holds even when accounting for the disruptive impact that moving can have on a child's life. In fact, the disruption may be one reason that Moving to Opportunity has a slightly negative effect on children who were older when their families moved. Not only was there less time to soak up the beneficial effects of the new neighborhood, moving disrupted the strong roots that people had already created.