This fall, after noticing a pronounced drop in the fraction of Philadelphians sporting skinny jeans and an uptick in bootcuts, I’ve begun slowly retiring my (still comfortable and sturdy) skinny jean collection for more “modern” replacements. Please don’t judge my wastefulness too harshly. I’m far from a fashionista, but like most people, I respond to peer pressure, and when trends shift, I don’t want to be the last goofball caught wearing dated styles.
My use of ChatGPT has followed a similar pattern. After more and more collaborators started mentioning how the new tech tool had helped them prepare for our meetings, I started popping my latest research ideas into ChatGPT, too, to ask it questions.
In short, when I notice an uptick in the way other people are behaving, I often shift my own behaviors in the same direction, which makes me entirely boring and normal. What’s more useful, though, is recognizing that this tendency to follow perceived trends can be turned into a tool of influence (for good or evil) by marketers, managers, policymakers and even parents who are aware of its power. Today I’m sharing a Q&A on this topic with psychologist Robert (Bob) Cialdini who is the international bestselling author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and an emeritus professor at Arizona State University. I hope you’ll enjoy the conversation!
This Month’s Recommended Listens and Reads
A New MasterClass on Change: In case you missed it, I shared my research on change in Jay Shetty’s new MasterClass on the topic, which I hope you’ll find helpful and interesting.
Overestimating Our Depth of Understanding: In this recent Choiceology episode, I interviewed Brown University psychology professor Steve Sloman about a phenomenon called the illusion of explanatory depth, which leads us to think we know more about how common ideas and devices — say zippers, toilets and welfare — work before we’re asked to explain them in depth.
Defaults Are Worth Big Bucks: Documenting the power of defaults to shape our choices is one of behavioral science’s greatest success stories, but as is often the case, this powerful tool can be used to harm people, not just to help. Corporations can use defaults to change privacy settings in ways that may make you very uncomfortable, as this helpful New York Times op-ed reveals.
The Latest Thinkers50 List of Leading Management Minds: I’m grateful to Thinkers50 for naming me one of the world’s 50 most influential management Thinkers of 2023 alongside an awe-inspiring group of scholars and practitioners. Check out the complete Thinkers50 list for fresh ideas and inspiration on management.
Q&A: Up, Up and Away
In this Q&A from Choiceology, international bestselling author and Emeritus ASU psychology professor Robert Cialdini discusses research on the way we react when we see an uptick (or downtick) in the popularity of an activity or product.
Me: Bob, can you describe what a trending norm is? And what’s the distinction between a trending norm and an ordinary norm?
Bob: A trending norm involves an observation or perception that the number of people who are undertaking an activity is moving in a particular direction. It can be up or down, but it's trending — not just staying static or being inconsistent.
A static norm — or an ordinary norm — is just the norm. So, we can say 65% of people wore their masks when they were in close quarters during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s a static norm. But at the start of the pandemic, we had a trending norm. It was 30%, by midway through it was 50%, and by the end it was 65%.
Me: I know we're really influenced by what most other people are doing. But you’ve shown that with trending norms it’s not just about the majority. Could you explain what happens when you tell someone that 5% of people were going to the gym last month and 20% are now?
Bob: If I just tell you the 5%, that reduces the likelihood that you’ll go to the gym because it doesn't seem to be chosen by most people around you. But if I give you evidence that the percentage has changed over however many years or months from 5% to 20%, now you think there's something going on that's likely to continue, and that makes you think that the majority will soon be moving in this direction and taking this action.
And once again, you've got the majority on your side, even though it's the future majority, not the existing majority.
Me: Could you describe your favorite demonstration that trending norms can change people's decisions?
Bob: I have two favorites. One from our lab and one from a lab at Stanford, run by Greg Sparkman and Greg Walton, who were doing the same thing at the same time, and we didn't know it.
In the study we did, we were interested in getting people to conserve water. So, we showed one group a newspaper article that just talked about water conservation but didn't give any numbers. Another group got a static, minority norm. Their article said that 48% of their neighbors are conserving water. A third group, which we called the trending norm, were told that 48% of their neighbors are conserving water, but three years ago it was 37%.
Then we said we'd like you to be in a consumer preference experiment for a new kind of toothpaste, and we gave them a toothbrush with some toothpaste on it, and we said, please brush your teeth and then tell us how much you like this new toothpaste. But really, we measured how much water they used while they were brushing their teeth. The control group — those who were told that a minority of people conserved water — used the most water. But those people who were told that there was a downward trend in water use used the least water of anyone in our experiment.
Sparkman and Walton showed people in a cafeteria a sign that either said 30% of people have meatless meals at that cafeteria, or that there was a recent increase to 30%. Those who were told about the increase were the ones who then purchased the most meatless meals.
Me: What explains the persuasive power of these trending norms?
Bob: We actually looked at that in our studies. It was the perception that the norm would continue to trend in that direction that spurred people to say, “well, I want to get on board with this because this is the future.” We got people who wanted to get on first, they wanted to be part of the vanguard, but we also got people who wanted to be part of the majority when that happens.
Me: And why do we care what everybody else is doing?
Bob: We live in the most stimulus-saturated, information-overloaded environment in our history. And all that information has increased our uncertainty about what we should do in any given situation. One way we can reduce that uncertainty is to look at what those around us, especially those who are like us, are doing or have been doing. And that allows us to say, “oh, okay, well this is probably a good choice for me, too.”
Me: I have to tell you that as a parent, I'm constantly looking for ways that I can share positive trending norms with my son. Maybe I notice an increasing number of his peers are getting into chess, playing the flute, practicing math, or doing homework enthusiastically. If I notice it, I say something. And I think all parents may want to look for those upticks around desirable behaviors in their kids’ peers and draw attention to them, too.
Bob: Oh, that's a great idea. But I'd recommend to always have three data points. That's a trend. One data point is a statistic. Two represent a change, but changes can go up and down. Changes can reverse. But three, that's a trend arrow in a particular direction.
Me: Thank you, Bob. I’ll remember that!
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
To learn more about Bob’s work on trending social norms, listen to the episode of Choiceology where we dig into the topic or pick up a copy of his fantastic, international bestselling book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
That’s all for this month’s newsletter. See you in December!
Katy Milkman, PhD
Professor at Wharton, Host of Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, and Bestselling Author of How to Change
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