Invisible Influence by Jonah Berger

bought. It’s perfect! We spent forever looking, but in the end we couldn’t be happier. I think you’ll really like it!
    And you do.
    You walk outside, he opens the garage, and you behold his gleaming new piece. The very same painting you were going to buy.
    Same artist. Same abstract shapes. Same beautiful colors. A couple small differences in layout, but it’s basically the same piece.
    What would you do? Would you still buy the painting you had in mind or would you look around for something else?
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    Scientists didn’t run this exact experiment (buying paintings would get expensive), but they ran a similar study at a local microbrewery. 14
    Two consumer psychologists posed as waiters doing a beer tasting. They offered groups of patrons sitting together the opportunity to sample one of four house beers: a medium-bodied red ale, a golden lager, an India pale ale, and a Bavarian summer-style beer. Patrons picked whichever one they wanted, and were given a free four-ounce sample to try.
    Free beer? Most people were more than happy to participate.
    After drinking the beer, customers answered a couple of questions: How much had they liked the beer? Did they wish they had chosen a different one?
    There was one additional detail. Half of the tables went through the normal ordering process. The waiter gave them a menu, told them about each beer, and then went around the table, one by one, asking people which beer they wanted.
    At the rest of the tables, patrons ordered privately. The waiter still gave them menus, and described each beer, but customers marked down their orders on scraps of paper, folded them, and handed them in so no one else could see what they had ordered.
    The two ordering situations were almost identical. Everyone chose from the same set of beers and received the same information. The only difference was whether people knew what others had selected before making their own choice.
    But when the researchers analyzed the data, they found a striking gap between the two groups. People who knew what othershad ordered were much less satisfied with the beer they chose. And they were three times more likely to regret their choice.
    Why? Because many had switched their order to be distinct. They picked a different option than they would normally to avoid ordering the same beer as someone else.
    Consider a group of three guys out for a drink. Paul loves pale ale, Larry has his eye on the lager, and Peter wants in on the pale ale as well. If they order privately, no one has any idea what the others ordered, so they just go ahead and choose what they want. Paul and Peter get the pale ale. Larry gets the lager.
    But if they go around the table, announcing their order one at a time, those who order later can find themselves in a tough position. Paul orders the pale ale, Larry orders the lager, and then it gets to Peter. He’d like to order the pale ale, but given that Paul already picked it, Peter might feel weird about ordering the same beer. Just as you might not want to buy the same painting as your neighbor.
    So Peter might pick a different beer, even though it makes him less happy as a result. I
    Sometimes people don’t want to be the same as everyone else. Sometimes people want to be different.
I LIKE THEIR OLD STUFF
    Today, professional baseball is a full-time job. In addition to playing over 160 games in 7 months, the off-season is filled with prepping for the next season. Some players lift weights to bulk up while others follow a strict diet in an attempt to slim down.Squadrons of coaches, chefs, and exercise gurus design regimens to optimize performance.
    But it wasn’t always that way. Baseball didn’t used to pay as much, so players had to put down the bat and glove during the off-season and find other ways to support their families. Hall of Famer Casey Stengel drove taxicabs. Pitcher Walter Johnson dug postholes for a telephone company. Shortstop Phil Rizzuto worked at a