Not long ago, as I scanned through my social media sites one morning, I came across a blog post where someone shared six reasons why they decided to give up alcohol. Curiosity got the best of me so I clicked on the link to find out why the author made that choice.
All of his reasons were valid and probably the best choice for him. What caught my attention more than his reasons were the comments that ensued. At the time I read the post, all 15 comments were from people who had also given up alcohol. There wasn’t one person who took the opposing view.
I decided to post a comment about why I choose to drink alcohol. To every point he shared I could make the opposite case as long as the drinking was in moderation. Despite the fact that according to a 2012 Gallup Poll 64% of Americans drink alcohol on occasion, I felt odd posting my comment because I was definitely in the minority.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that despite the fact that two out of three Americans drink, all the readers said they didn’t drink. As I thought about it two reasons came to mind.
The first reason was social proof (aka consensus or peer pressure). This principle of influence tells us the more people do something the more inclined others are to join in. In other words, we get our cues for socially acceptable behavior by looking at how others are behaving in the same situation.
This was a classic case of social proof in action because the more people posted about their experience, the more others felt free to do the same thing.