Incognito by David Eagleman Page A

an accident.
    But they’re not an accident. In 2004, psychologistJohn Jones and his colleagues examined fifteen thousand public marriage records from Walker County, Georgia, and Liberty County, Florida. They found that, indeed, people more often get married to others with the same first letter of their first name than would be expected by chance. 11
    But why? It’s not about the letters, exactly—instead it’s about the fact that those mates somehow remind their spouses of themselves. People tend to love reflections of themselves in others. Psychologists interpret this as an unconscious self-love, or perhaps a comfort level with things that are familiar —and they term this
implicit egotism
.
    Implicit egotism is not just about life partners—it also influences the products you prefer and purchase. In one study, subjects were presented with two (fictional) brands of tea to taste-test. One of the brand names of the teas happened to share its first three letters with the subject’s name; that is, Tommy might be sampling teas named Tomeva and Lauler. Subjects would taste the teas, smack their lips, consider both carefully, and almost always decide that they preferred the tea whose name happened to match the first letters of their name. Not surprisingly, a subject named Laura would choose the tea named Lauler. They weren’t explicitly
aware
of the connection with the letters; they simply believed the tea tasted better. As it turns out, both cups of tea had been poured from the same teapot.
    The power of implicit egotism goes beyond your name to other arbitrary features of yourself, such as your birthday. In a university study, students were given an essay to read about the Russian monk Rasputin. For half the students, Rasputin’s birthday was mentioned in the essay—and it was gimmicked so that it “happened” to be the same as the reader’s own birthday. For theother half of the students, a birthday different from their own was used; otherwise the essays were identical. At the end of the reading, the students were asked to answer several questions covering what they thought of Rasputin as a person. Those who believed they shared a birthday with Rasputin gave him more generous ratings. 12 They simply liked him more, without having any conscious access as to why.
    The magnetic power of unconscious self-love goes beyond what and whom you prefer. Incredibly, it can subtly influence where you live and what you do, as well. PsychologistBrett Pelham and his colleagues plumbed public records and found that people with birthdays on February 2 (2/2) are disproportionately likely to move to cities with a reference to the number two in their names, such as Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. People born on 3/3 are statistically overrepresented in places like Three Forks, Montana, as are people born on 6/6 in places like Six Mile, South Carolina, and so on for all the birthdays and cities the authors could find. Consider how amazing that is: associations with the numbers in people’s arbitrary birth dates can be influential enough to sway their residential choices, however slightly. Again, it’s unconscious.
    Implicit egotism can also influence what you chose to do with your life. By analyzing professional membership directories, Pelham and his colleagues found that people named Denise or Dennis are disproportionately likely to become dentists, while people named Laura or Lawrence are more likely to become lawyers, and people with names like George or Georgina to become geologists. They also found that owners of roofing companies are more likely to have a first initial of R instead of H, while hardware store owners are more likely to have names beginning with H instead of R. 13 A different study mined freely available online professional databases to find that physicians have disproportionately more surnames that include
doc
,
dok
, or
med
, while lawyers are more likely to have
law
,
lau
, or
att
in their surnames. 14
    As crazy as it