SOCIAL PROOF: You will be amazed how far people will go to avoid the pain of thinking and brain storming. I read in an article while back that said: How well a society has modernized is directly proportional to how many daily functions a person can perform without thinking. Which does makes sense. we want everything to be automatic, we want refrigerators that should automatically recognize which grocery item is depleting and order it in advance. We want smarter TV's that should tell us which new shows to watch based on which shows we have been watching in the past.
I know you are thinking its true but what does it have to do with the title of this posting. Well here it is, one way of avoiding thinking is use social proof for certain products or people. What do I mean by that? You see TV commercials and they show a normal day to day John Doe using a product and you think, he looks like me so if he uses it, it must be right thing to do and let me try it as well. If others are doing it, them it might be the right thing to do. Thats one reason hurds of people end up investing into a stock just because its favored by majority but thats another post.
My point is, when a girl at a party (lets call her Mary) see's a guy (John) coming in with another girl (lets call her Jamie), she automatically assumes that the guy must be normal or has something special since she is with him (note that the girl does not has to be dating the guy, just her presence with the guy is influence enough). So, Mary assumes that the guy must have something on for him thats why Jamie is with him. She unconsiously looks for the social proof which comes in form of Jamie.
But if Don walks in the party with his guy friends, then he might be precieved by Mary as undesirable or at least less desirable than John since he is coming by himself, no girl then maybe something wrong with him that no one wants him.
The social proof provided by Jamie to Mary saves Mary time and pain to think and try to see if the guy is really good or not. Her assumption that since Jamie is with John, he must be something and that what I want it too. So even at subconscious levels Mary feels attracted towards John with minimal efforts from John.
Ladies, am I right or am I right?
This methodology is used by advertisers and businesses to attract more customers into buying their products. Main Idea behind it: If I see someone like me trying that product and enjoying it, it must be good so let me try it as well. eg: all informercials, sandwich makers ads, magic bullet commercial, Mac VS PC Ads, etc.
