Are we influenced by friends – or the crowd?

By Molly Flatt

Two weeks ago we released our research white paper, ‘Meet the Family: A new model for social influence.’ Our aim was to explore the different influences that impact upon purchasing behaviour within the family; but also, crucially, to identify which ones are most important, for which types of people.

So this week we’ve been reading with interest the new study from the Social Computing Group division of HP Labs, which also tries to examine what types of relationship most influence our behaviour in social.

Does the crowd trump your mates? Image via James Good

In ‘Swayed by Friends or by the Crowd?’ the HP team look at users of Mechanical Turk and conduct three empirical studies on the effect of friends’ recommendations vs general ratings on their behaviour. The gist of their findings?

“We find that for a user deciding between two choices an additional rating star has a much larger effect than an additional friend’s recommendation on the probability of selecting an item.

Equally important, negative opinions from friends are more influential than positive opinions, and people exhibit more random behavior in their choices when the decision involves less cost and risk.

Our results can be generalized across different demographics, implying that individuals trade off recommendations from friends and ratings in a similar fashion.”

It’s a small study specific to a very particular platform but worth absorbing nonetheless.

While offline word of mouth with friends and family still holds greatest sway over our decisions, might the wisdom of the crowd be what we’re seeking when we go online? Can the looseness of a ‘friend’ in social media (come on, for all your matey comments you haven’t seen that girl on Facebook since you were nine) devalue their influence?

Last year, the University of Washington Foster School of Business and the Wharton School of Business conducted another niche but noteworthy study on the influence of friends versus the crowd, this time on the topic of film reviews.They found that:

“if you pay attention to online movie reviews, you are likely to follow the crowd. If, on the other hand, you consider the online reviews generated by friends, you’ll probably come to your own conclusion.”

Friends vs crowds: what’s your take?

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Brought into the world on Thursday, September 29th, 2011 and filed under Different Size Feet, Stats & Research.

  • http://www.sytaylor.net sytaylor

    Ideas are mimetic.  We’re looking for authority based on trust.  Who or what we trust is an individual value.  To set a golden rule is tough.

    If only there was some way to profile someone’s like’s / dislikes and tendencies so you could alter your offering to suit their purchasing style?  

    Sounds like a job for… OPEN GRAPH (I feel like it needs theme music)

  • http://whatleydude.com James Whatley

    cue: A-Team theme tune! ;D