Page 54 - The Social Animal

36 The Social Animal

particular way because such behavior is intrinsically satisfying; rather,
we adopt a particular behavior because it puts us in a satisfying rela-
tionship to the person or persons with whom we are identifying.
Identification differs from compliance in that we do come to believe
in the opinions and values we adopt, although we do not believe in
them very strongly. Thus, if we find a person or a group attractive or
appealing in some way, we will be inclined to accept influence from
that person or group and adopt similar values and attitudes—not to
obtain a reward or avoid a punishment (as in compliance), but sim-
ply to be like that person or group. I refer to this as the good-old-
Uncle-Charlie phenomenon. Suppose you have an uncle named
Charlie who happens to be a warm, dynamic, exciting person; ever
since you were a young child, you loved him and wanted to grow up
to be like him. Uncle Charlie is a corporate executive who has a
number of strong opinions, including a deep antipathy to social wel-
fare legislation. That is, he is convinced that anyone who really tries
can earn a decent wage and that, by handing money to people, the
government only succeeds in eliminating their desire to work. As a
young child, you heard Uncle Charlie announce this position on sev-
eral occasions, and it has become part of your system of beliefs—not
because you thought it through and it seemed right to you or because
Uncle Charlie rewarded you for adopting (or threatened to punish
you for not adopting) this position. Rather, it has become part of
your belief system because of your liking for Uncle Charlie, which
has produced in you a tendency to incorporate into your life that
which is his.
This phenomenon occurs often when we encounter the opinions
of people we like or admire—even relative strangers. Geoffrey Cohen
34
and Michael Prinstein asked high school students to participate in
online chat room discussions with one another. One of the topics
being discussed was what students would do if offered marijuana at
a party. In one condition, the participants were led to believe that
they were “chatting” with two popular and admired classmates from
their school (the high school equivalents of Uncle Charlie). In the
other, these classmates were identified as students of merely average
popularity. When participants believed they were chatting with the
classmates who were popular, they were far more likely to adopt their
opinions. If the admired classmates said they would smoke the mar-
ijuana, the participants tended to agree that they, too, would smoke