Study says outside influences affect humans' everyday choices

Do you ever feel like the people around you are controlling your every move?

In a recently-conducted experiment called "Of Chamelions and Consumption: The Impact of Mimicry on Choice and Preferences," several students and professors in the Fuqua School of Business found that other people's actions may influence our choices far more than we might realize. The study focused on how mimicry affects individuals' product consumption and long-term behavioral preferences.

"There are influences that don't really rise to conscious awareness that you are exposed to but don't really pay attention to," said James Bettman, Burlington Industries professor of marketing at Fuqua.

As the test subjects, Duke undergraduates were paid $10 to participate in one of three experiments that tested how individuals mimic the actions of others in their environment.

In one of the three experiments, the undergraduates were put in a room with one bowl of Goldfish Crackers and another bowl of animal crackers in front of them. They next watched a film in which the narrator ate exclusively from a bowl of Goldfish Crackers or a bowl of animal crackers.

The facilitators recorded how often students ate from either of the bowls while watching the film. Next, the students were asked to fill out a survey in which they rated their liking of 30 different snacks including Goldfish Crackers and animal crackers.

The study found that when the students were watching the narrator eat a certain snack, they too ate that same snack more often even if they had said in the survey that they preferred the alternative snack.

The findings of this experiment were not completely surprising, but they suggested that the influences of others can alter our day-to-day decisions in many ways, said Rosellina Ferraro, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and a contributor to the study.