Your Friends Influence Your Shopping Decisions More Than You Think

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  today, I want to talk about who influences your shopping

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  decisions. You might be surprised to know that your friends,

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  your relatives and so on people who are close to

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  you, your tribe, so to speak, influence your shopping decisions

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  much more than you think.

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  And there's extensive research on this topic.

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  So, for example, let's talk about smoking.

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  If your friends stop smoking, good friends stop smoking.

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  You're 37% more likely to stop smoking because they influence

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  you with their behavior with.

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  They're talking about it and so on.

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  If your spouse stop smoking, that's even better.

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  Then you're 63% more likely to stop smoking.

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  Wow, two thirds.

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  So one third and then two thirds, essentially, unfortunately, goes

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  the other way as well, with bad habits, problematic habits.

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  If your friend good friend becomes obese, then you're 57%

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  more likely to become a beefs.

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  And if your sibling brother sister becomes obvious, you're 40%

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  more likely to become a piece.

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  Not great news, but we can use that news to

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  our advantage.

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  We can understand how we make our shopping choices and

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  make wiser shopping choices because we know how our brain

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  works and how it cause us to make both poor

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  decisions and good decisions.

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  The first thing to understand about shopping, how others influence

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  our decisions in shopping.

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  Another areas, of course.

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  But we're gonna focus on shopping today.

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  Just keep in mind of lies to other areas as

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  well is that we think of ourselves as rational beings.

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  Now, if we're purely rational, we want the influence of

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  all by what are close friends do or what our

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  spouse does.

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  Or what are sibling does regarding smoking regarding they're getting

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  a beast or any other decisions that have to do

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  with their behavior with their shopping choices with anything else.

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  Now somebody else got a nice new car.

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  We wouldn't be trying to compete with the Joneses, right?

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  That's a very famous phrase, competing with the Joneses, keeping

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  up with the Joneses.

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  We wouldn't be trying to keep up with the Joneses,

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  but we do because we're not rational, were very far

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  from rational.

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  In fact, our intuitions, our emotions, our gut reactions actually

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  shape determined about 18 90% off what we do.

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  Our decision making processes 18 90%.

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  Can you imagine that that all comes from our gut

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  that comes from our intuitions.

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  That comes from how we feel rather than how we

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  think. And that creates a lot of problems, of course,

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  for good decision making, because what happens is called something

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  called post factum rationalization.

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  So after the fact rationalization, where we create reasons in

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  our minds supposedly rational reasons to justify our choices, so

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  create those reasons.

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  And we feel like we made rational decision when we

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  actually made a decision that was very much emotional and

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  very much influenced, surprisingly so by other people around us.

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  People who were close to that comes from how our

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  brains are wired.

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  Our brains are wired, not for the modern world.

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  Are good reactions or emotions or intuitions are actually evolved

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  with Savannah environment, the ancestral savannah environment.

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  When we lived in small tribes of 15 people, 150

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  people and we were hunters, fortunes and gatherers, that's what

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  we're about.

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  That's what we evolved for.

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  So we have very strong tribal instincts.

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  I mean, if we didn't, we are.

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  We're the descendants of those who have very strong tribal

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  instincts. If we our ancestors didn't have strong tribal instincts,

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  if they didn't conform to the tribe.

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  Then they get kicked out of the tribe and they

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  die. And if they didn't have strong tribal instincts in

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  the sense of trying to climb up the tribal hierarchy,

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  the social status hierarchy, then they would not get the

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  bust. Resource is, and they wouldn't get to reproduce.

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  So, you know, maybe they survived, but they wouldn't have

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  many descendants.

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  So we are the descendants of those who have very

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  strong tribal instincts in terms of conforming to the tribe

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  and what very strong tribal instincts in the sense of

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  going up the tribal hierarchy.

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  So that's something we have to understand about us.

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  That's how our mind works because, well, relied on those

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  tribes for survival.

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  And we still carry those instincts impulses within us.

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  And that results in a number of dangerous judgment errors.

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  Thes two types of tribalism, two aspects of tribalism called

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  cognitive biases.

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  Cognitive biases are the specific, dangerous judgment errors we make

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  because of how our brains are wired.

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  Then that's what cognitive neuroscientist and behavioral economists like me

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  study and we look a TTE.

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  What are the errors we make?

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  More importantly, for me, at least, how could we address

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  these errors to make better decisions.

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  One of the very important errors that we make in

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  regards to our tribal impulse to conform is called the

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  halo effect.

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  It's like wearing a little halo.

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  So the halo effect it's where if somebody you like

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  somebody you perceive to be part of your tribe, if

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  they have a certain characteristic, then you will tend to

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  like all of their other characteristics.

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  So if they have a characteristic that makes them feel

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  like part of your tribe, then you will judge them

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  in a more positive manner.

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  Then they deserve to be judged by somebody who's a

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  rational human being, right, purely rational, and I fall for

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  this as well, and it's very easy to fall for

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  this. But you got to know that in shopping and

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  smoking and obesity and a lot of these things, you

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  don't want to be doing that.

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  You don't want to be making the bad decisions that

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  sometimes your friends and even loved ones of like spouses

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  and submit sisters brothers make.

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  So you want to be careful about this halo effect,

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  where you will tend to have to positive a view

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  off the shopping decisions that those close to you make

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  and other decisions as well.

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  Now the other thing that you want to watch out

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  for is called the social comparison bias.

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  That's another cognitive bias, where we tend to be competitive

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  with others who we see us part of our tribe.

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  We tend to want to climb the social ladder.

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  That's kind of about social status.

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  So we're comparing ourselves to them constantly without realizing it.

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  That's how our brain works.

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  That's why keeping up with the Joneses is a very

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  powerful thing.

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  Our neighbors, of course.

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  Jones's Who.

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  That's what it's referring to.

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  So looking at them and seeing what they're doing and

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  our peers of various sorts of the workplace.

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  And most importantly, our friends are close friends are spouse,

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  our brothers, sisters, siblings.

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  They very much influences so constantly comparing ourselves with them

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  and unconsciously, emotionally, intuitively, sometimes consciously, we are competing with

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  them. We're in competition with them so they don't want

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  to let that topping somebody else by buying a nicer

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  car, buying nicer clothing by a nicer house, let you

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  make bad decisions with your money for your shopping choices.

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  So that's something to keep in mind the social comparison

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  bias. Now, Fortunately, you can use recent techniques that were

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  discovered about how to undress cognitive biases to actually make

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  better shopping decisions.

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  One is to choose your friends wisely.

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  Sometimes you'll have an old friend left over from high

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  school who's kind of, ah, not the best person for

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  to have in your life.

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  But they've been around for a long time, and you

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  feel a strong sense of connection to them.

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  But perhaps they're kind of life is going in a

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  bad direction, and perhaps you're noticing that they're influencing you

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  in some bad ways.

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  You're picking up some negative habits or you're still sharing

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  those habits.

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  Perhaps you wouldn't want to share that.

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  You would not want that person in your life if

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  you just let them right now, consider making friends whose

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  qualities you actually admire, including their shopping decisions and all

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  sorts of other decisions, so that you are influenced in

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  a positive way without realizing it, because you can't always

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  be thinking about how is that person influencing me my

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  suffering from the halo effect on my suffering from the

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  social comparison effect, it would be spending all your time

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  just thinking about these things.

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  It's much better to make a specific decision to make

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  friends whose qualities you admire and then choose those friends

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  and then let them influence you because they'll be most

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  likely influencing you positively and again, spending less time with

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  the wrong crowd.

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  Both of those things are really important.

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  So not simply choosing good friends whose qualities you admire

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  but not spending time with people spending less and less

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  time. Let's say that way with people who are not

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  good for you who are bad influences, then one of

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  the things that you want to be careful about this

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  release, especially to the social comparison bias is fads.

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  People get into fads all the time.

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  They fashion is made up of fads, right?

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  Or there's this cool new car, cool new computer, whatever

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  it is that people make get into fads all the

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  time, and due to the social comparison bias, they tried

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  to eventually top each other.

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  So you're looking to compete with somebody else, so you

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  want toe.

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  Be aware of fats and beware off fats.

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  So be aware now what's what they are, what's going

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  on and be wary of um, be careful about them.

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  Don't fall for Fats because you're just falling for that

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  intuitive social comparison bias that we all tend to fall

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  for. It's too easy to do that.

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  So that's what I want to share with you about.

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  That's how your friends, your loved ones, influence you in

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  a much broader way than you might think is happening.

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  And the here, the steps that you could take toe

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  address this influence.