Invisible Influence by Jonah Berger Page B

engaging read.”
    Unfortunately, however, there just weren’t that many of them. Readers were few and far between. The Cuckoo’s Calling was released with little fanfare and sold only 1,500 hardcover copies in the first three months of being on sale.
    Then one day the book surged from 4,709th to become the best-selling book on Amazon. Soon, hundreds of thousands of copies had been sold.
    Had people realized Robert Galbraith’s genius? No. Had careful inspection of the writing of The Cuckoo’s Calling revealed it to be a literary masterpiece? No again.
    Someone had simply unmasked Rowling as the book’s actual author.
    Without J. K. Rowling, The Cuckoo’s Calling was merely one of the thousands of well-written detective novels competing for attention. With J. K. Rowling, it had a 450-million-copy seal of approval that made potential readers take a look. After all, how could millions of people be wrong?
PUTTING SOCIAL INFLUENCE TO WORK
    These findings about the science of imitation have a number of important implications.
    When trying to persuade others or convince them to do something, we tend to default to rewards or punishments. The employee of the month gets $100 and their name up on the wall. Kids are told to eat their vegetables or they won’t get ice cream for desert.
    But while rewards and punishments are effective in the short term, they often undermine what they set out to achieve.
    Imagine you were stuck on an alien planet and they serve two things for dinner: Zagwarts and Gallblats. You’ve never heard of either, and both look a little weird, but you’re famished, so you have to eat something.
    Before you get a chance to pick one, your host says that before you eat your Zagwarts, you have to eat your Gallblats.
    Which one do you think tastes better? Zagwarts or Gallblats?
    Kids make similar inferences about ice cream and vegetables. They like ice cream, and while they might not love vegetables, the ice cream reward undermines any otherwise positive feelings they might have had. After all, if vegetables were good in the first place, why would they need a reward to eat them?
    An ice cream reward sends a subtle signal that vegetables aren’t worth eating on their own. That kids need to be paid (in ice cream) to eat them. And when parents stop paying, kids will stop eating. Whenever they get the opportunity to make their own food choices, vegetables will be tossed to the side. The same goes for employees. They start to infer that the only reason to be on time and give good service is because they’ll get paid more, not because they care about their job.
    Using social influence is more effective. Just like monkeys with the red and blue corn, people mimic others’ choices and actions. If their parents can’t seem to get enough broccoli, kids will follow suit.
    Unfortunately, many parents signal to their kids that vegetables are not tasty. Parents don’t put many vegetables on their own plate, and eat the chicken or steak or whatever else is being served first. And if their parents aren’t eating vegetables, why would kids want to?
    But if broccoli is the first thing on their parents’ plate, and the first thing their parents eat, kids will do the same. Even better ifthere’s a mock argument over which parent gets to eat the last piece. The more kids see their parents eating something—and liking it—the more likely they’ll be to do the same.
    Mimicry is also a helpful tool.
    Imagine you’re out to lunch one sunny spring day with a couple of colleagues from work. You’re sitting outside at a local pub, and after scanning the menu for a few minutes you know exactly what you’re going to get.
    The waiter comes by, asks you what you’d like, and the order rolls off your tongue: “The Brussels Burger, medium, with bacon and cheddar, and a side salad.”
    â€œOkay,” he says, “the Brussels Burger, medium, with