Social Proof - Informational Social Influence

What is Social Proof & why it’s an important psychological phenomenon?

Social Proof is a social and psychological phenomenon, where individuals copy other people’s behavior.

The effect occurs when a person is unsure of the correct way to behave. In this situation, they will often look to others for clues about the correct behavior. The same principle applies when someone is unsure whether to trust something or believe someone. Social Proof can even shape our preferences and the choices we make.

In the book, “Influence,” Robert Cialdini describes social proof as “the tendency to see an action as more appropriate when others are doing it.” Cialdini claims social proof is more powerful when we’re uncertain what to do.

Wisdom of the crowds

We can relate this to lots of things we do in our life. For example, you come across a book in Crosswords book shop and the book’s title is interesting but you never heard about this book or the author before. Now, what would you do? You go to Amazon or Goodreads to check the reviews for that book. If it's good, you will decide to buy it. If the ratings are poor, you will chuck it and start browsing other books. Why do we do that? We don’t know anyone personally who wrote those reviews. But still, we are deciding whether to buy a book or not based on their reviews. Because, our reasoning is if so many people are giving 4 or 5-star reviews for this book, it must be good. That’s why social proofing is very powerful and that’s the reason why every business tries to get as many reviews as possible for the products listed on their site.

Wisdom of your friends

If the wisdom of the crowds is so powerful, imagine how powerful if the recommendation comes from your friends.  Let's say, one of your friends bought a perfume from a brand you never heard of, and if she couldn’t stop talking about how good the perfume is, you develop a very strong positive emotion towards that brand. Next time when you are planning to buy perfume, that brand will automatically come in your consideration set. That’s why Word of Mouth or Viral marketing is so powerful as customers become brand ambassadors and start promoting that brand to their friends and family. That’s the reason, why lots of online businesses run the Referral program as it creates Viral Marketing.

When social proof misfires

Sometimes, social proofing will mislead you to make wrong decisions. One classic example is Share markets. In the current pandemic situation, most of the business is forecasting negative growth not for just Q1’20, but for the entire financial year. Layoffs, salary cut, businesses shutting down has become a norm rather than an outlier. But still, there is an upswing in share market which might be influenced by intraday trading, Futures & Options markets, positive sentiment due to increase in FPI limit in Corporate bonds, etc But some of the retail investors, who doesn’t understand the fundamentals, macroeconomic situations and invest purely based on friend’s recommendation & by reading few articles in websites such as money control, economic times, etc, end up investing in stocks with poor fundamentals. The reason people give themselves is, its better to buy when there is a dip and share market is moving up, so there must be some reason why everyone is buying so let me also buy. This is social proofing negatively influencing our decision and make us follow a herd mentality. In the end, it's our hard-earned money we will end up losing.

So, next time when you are planning to buy from a brand which you never bought before or when you look at Zomato to figure out which restaurant to go for dinner, consciously think how social proofing is influencing your decision

Focus

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem” – Zig Ziglar

I always wanted to do so many things in my life. Books to read, movies to watch, Netflix to binge, restaurants to eat, cities/countries to visit, courses to enroll, skills to develop, and the list never ends. I always had a big wish list and tried to do everything at the same time. This ended up causing unnecessary stress as I always had FOMO at the back of my mind and I was not making any progress on the skills I want to learn/improve.

Usually, I read a lot of articles, blogs related to investments, personal finance, etc. When I was reading a blog about discipline in personal life and finance, I came across a story about Warren Buffet. It goes like this.

Mike Flint Story

Mike Flint was Buffett's personal airplane pilot for 10 years. According to Flint, he was talking about his career priorities with Buffett when his boss asked the pilot to go through a 3-step exercise.
Here's how it works…

1. Buffett started by asking Flint to write down his top 25 career goals.
2. Then, Buffett asked Flint to review his list and circle his top 5 goals.
3. At this point, Flint had two lists. The 5 items he had circled were List A and the 20 items he had not circled were List B.

Flint confirmed that he would start working on his top 5 goals right away. And that's when Buffett asked him about the second list, “And what about the ones you didn't circle?”

Flint replied, “Well, the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in a close second. They are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.”

To which Buffett replied, “No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”

It’s a profound story about essentialism and eliminating the excess. You can improve your life not only by keep on adding but also by eliminating certain habits.

How focus helped me to improve

After reading this story, I wanted to apply this principle to my personal life. I decided to stop doing everything and made a list of goals I want to achieve in the short term (month’s time) and long term (year’s time).

Thank God, I didn't have a list of 25 career goals like Mike. However, still, my list had around 10 goals which I needed to trim down. I eliminated goals like Learning about Blockchain/Bitcoin, Binge-watching every new hit series in Netflix, Learning Web design, Practicing for Half Marathon, Learn swimming, etc and came with the below list.

My short term list

• Write a blog
• Start learning Graphic Design
• Start learning to Copywrite
• Do yoga and exercise daily

My long term list

• Write at least 20 blogs in a year's time
• Design UI/UX for a website/app
• Write microcopy for a website/app
• Be fit and healthy

Once I had this list, it gave me a lot of clarity on which areas I should focus on and I was able to track my progress against each goal. Also, my anxiety level reduced as I no longer worry about things that I am not doing.

So, whenever you feel overwhelmed with your life, list down the goals you want to achieve in your life and ruthlessly eliminate everything else and see the results for yourself.