If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it’s healthier.
It’s not surprising that social norms influence consumer behavior. When everybody else wants to spend $400 on the new iPad, it makes sense that you’ll be more willing to spend $400 on a new iPad. The question is, how far does this social influence extend?
A new study led by Ivo Vlaev examines how social norms influence spending on a good that ought to be on the opposite end of the social influence spectrum from consumer electronics: pain reduction. If somebody stabs you in the foot with a steak knife, you would assume your desire to alleviate that pain has nothing to do with the decision of somebody else who suffered the same stabbing. But that’s not what Vlaev and his team found. When it came to avoiding a painful electric shock, people didn’t just make decisions based their own pain, they also took into account how much other people wanted to reduce that same pain. […]
The fact that our desire to alleviate pain is subject to social influences has important implications for health care systems. For example, if it seems like back pain is something you’re expected to live with, people might be less willing to seek treatment for it.
