This article was taken from the February 2012 issue of Wired
magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before
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The romcom movie genre can hardly be described as fundamental to
understanding human behaviour. But there is one exception: the Rob
Reiner film When Harry Met Sally contains probably the
most important scene in film history (in terms of behavioural
science). And yes, it is the scene in which Meg Ryan fakes an
orgasm in Katz's Deli. But it is the response of the older lady
at the next table that matters. When Ryan is finished, this
character turns to the waiter and says: "I'll have what she's
The phrase gets to the core of the essential human talent for
"social learning" -- learning from the example of those around us.
We do it earlier than infants of our fellow primates (as young as
42 minutes after birth, according to one study); we do it better
and more accurately; and we keep on doing it for fun, long after
our primate cousins have given up. This is the missing piece in our
understanding of human behaviour: whereas cognitive neuroscientists
and behavioural economists have shown the primary role of emotion
as opposed to rationality in cognition, the importance of I'll Have
What She's Having (IHWSH) as a thinking short cut is clearer than
ever. Evolutionary psychologists might post-rationalise modern
human quirks in terms of the supposed lifestyle of our ancestors,
but IHWSH shows us our lives today.
Take last summer's riots: however much politicians and judges
stress the moral or psychological pathologies of individuals, most
participants emulated what they saw going on unpunished around them
-- helped by media effectively showing rioting as an exciting
"Culture" markets such as music, books and films are also shaped
by social influence (as Duncan Watts of Yahoo! and Matt Salganik of Princeton University have shown).
We mostly choose what those around us choose, whatever we tell
ourselves. We do the same with the names we give our children, the
dog breeds we select, the neighbourhoods we live in. Nick
Christakis and James Fowler's study of the longitudinal health
study in Framingham, Massachusetts, revealed the primary influence
of our nearest and dearest on individuals' weight gain (you're 63
percent more likely to become obese if someone in your circle is).
It's the people around us who shape our behaviour.
This simple insight builds on much of what psychologists such as
Nick Humphrey and anthropologists such as Robin Dunbar have shown about the social nature of our
brains -- they are social-monitoring devices much more than
calculators. Think about the "mirror neurons" discovered by
Giacomo Rizzolatti and team that entangle our individual brains
with those of the people around us.
All of which runs contrary to many of the stories we each tell
ourselves. We are not the authors of our own lives. We use other
people's bodies and brains to navigate through life, to work out
what to do, what to choose and where to go next. Now, what is that
guy over there drinking?
Mark Earls, with Alex Bentley and Mike O'Brien, is author of
' I'll Have What She's Having -- Mapping Social Behavior'