The Influential Mind Made Me Think #12: On How The Decisions Of Others Influence Us

By now, I am 3/4 done with "The Influential Mind". If we assume that every post I have done on it is a great idea or concept it has taught me or helped me expand on, there have been 12 so far. If this tendency continues until the end of the book, I calculate to have 15 posts total by the time I finish it. Anyway, just a random thought I wanted to share. Again, if you have a chance, I really recommend the book.

On the last edition of "The Influential Mind Made Me Think", I talk about how the decisions and attitudes of the people around us have a huge influence on us. This influence usually happens under the radar, and therefore we all believe to be more unique or to have a more independent thought process than the average person. This is mathematically impossible. The reality is that part of what makes us such a smart species is that we do not have to experience something ourselves to learn from it. In other words, by seeing another person experience something, we can learn from it. Such learning is amazing in most cases, but has its downsides in others.

Part of why the give so much weight, consciously or unconsciously, to other people's choices is because of how our brains work. When we perceive other people's choices, our brain automatically encodes added utility to those options. This is because it operates under the assumption that what is desired by others is likely valuable. Then, when it is our turn to choose, we retrieve these value signals unconsciously and use them to make a decision.

As I mentioned above, even though this behavior can be advantageous in most cases, sometimes, it can be very detrimental. An example of a detrimental situation is the U.S. kidney market. Every year, 10% of kidney donations go unused! Why?! It turns out it has to do with the influence of others' decisions on us. A patient can decline a donation because of several different reasons. They can be religious, related to their medical condition, or any other. When a kidney is rejected, they go to the next person in the list waiting for one. This person is told that the kidney has been previously declined but are not given a reason. Then the patient assumes that the organ is probably faulty and passes up on a potentially life saving operation!

Pixabay Image Source.

On the other hand, Christophe Chamley came to show us an instant when social learning can actually determine if the next creatures taking decisions will live or die. He studied the behavior of Adelie penguins in Antarctica. To eat, penguins need to jump into the water. But jumping into the water also means becoming exposed to predators like leopard seals. So what do they do? It basically becomes a game to see who will jump first (or is pushed in). Eventually, a very brave or hungry penguin will jump into the water. Once this happens, the rest of the penguins will observe for a second. I it survives, the rest will follow, if not, they will turn away.

Us humans do the exact same thing. We do not take risks at once without seeing people taking them previously and coming out of them victorious. We watch our risk-seeking friends jump and wait to see if they land safely. If they do, then we might try it ourselves. We need to try to be more conscious about how people around influence us, but more importantly, about how our own actions influence the people around us. Specially if the spectators are playing close attention. Such is the case with kids, colleagues, or friends. People will imitate us, and I guess there is certain responsibility attached to it. If not responsibility, at the very least I am asking for awareness.

Mom - "If your friend jumps from a cliff, would you jump after him?"
Son - "Well, it depends. Did he land safely?"

What do you think? I'd like to hear your opinions.

In the past, I was sharing all the links to the posts of this series. Now that the series has a decent amount of posts, I will only share the ones that I think are most correlated with the current post. So, if you want to check out other thoughts that this awesome book has evoked, and are related to this post, click on these past posts:

• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #1: Disinformation That The Information Era Has Created
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #5: On Agency And The Hardship Of Financial Decisions
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #6: On How Agency Is Deeply Rooted In Us
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #7: On The Pleasure And Pain Of Knowledge, And What We Choose To Learn
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #8: On How Stress Changes Our Perspectives
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #9: On How Stress Can Make You Avoid Possibly Fruitful Risks
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #10: On How To Overcome The Fear Of Failure And Take Risks
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #11: On How The Average Person Thinks To Be Above Average

Best,

@capatazche