Reader Steve L. sent me a Live Science report on a paper published in the British journal BMJ on the perils of following celebrity medical advice. Such advice is often contrary to what medical science says, or is simply made-up nonsense. In asking why people follow such advice, the authors arrived at some startling conclusions.
What drives people to trust the health advice of celebrities, even though most of these individuals clearly have no medical background, and even though their advice often goes against convention and logic? Blame it on your brain.
Humans' gray matter is hardwired to trust celebrities, according to researchers at McMaster University in Ontario. They reviewed more than 200 years' worth of data, and concluded that something deeper than mere cultural norms is at play...
Some people view Suzanne Somers [pictured left], in particular, as either a health authority or health pioneer, even though she continues to display a complete misunderstanding of basic science, both during television appearances and in her books. Considering what is at stake — the possibility of developing cancer from the hormone therapy that Somers advocates — one would think women would instead trust their doctors or other health authorities and steer clear of unproven, unregulated hormone treatments...
But the brain nixes such logic, according to Steve J. Hoffman and his co-author, medical student Charlie Tan.
"Our study's findings not only apply to health decisions, but [also to] any type of decision we make," Hoffman told LiveScience. "We thought it was particularly scary that celebrities seem to have influence over our health decisions when the vast majority of them have no medical expertise. Or at least, they have far less expertise and knowledge of our individual health needs than our own doctors."
Hoffman said there are "deeply rooted biological, psychological and social forces" that make celebrity health advice influential. These forces include psychological effects such as classical conditioning, self-conception, cognitive dissonance, the halo effect and herd behavior...
I must admit that I'd never thought much about this subject before I saw this article, but have no qualms about filing this kind of thing under human social instincts. Thus we are looking at yet another product of the human unconscious at work.
Of all the instincts I sketched out in my Flatland post, the social instincts are the hardest to describe, the hardest to write about. For example, what I have called the technological instinct is easy to write about because it's so easy to observe. When humans propose this or that outlandish technological "solution" to problems which clearly require behavioral shifts, and behaviorial changes are never mentioned, it is easy to conclude that humans are wired to think that way (i.e., technology is often the answer because large behavioral changes are impossible to achieve).
Moreover, it was technology (stone tools) which accounts for the longer-run success of the genus Homo and its sole surviving species Homo sapiens. It would be very surprising indeed if the tendency to solve problems with technology weren't built right into human cognition.
However, with social instincts the problem goes much, much deeper. Humans rarely live independently of the deep social ties which bind them together—the family, the workplace, the tribe, the nation, religions, intentional groups (e.g. environmentalists, political factions, doomers, bird lovers, whatever), etc.
Humans appear to be interested in lots of different things, but above all they are interested in each other. When Aristotle referred to humans as Social Animals, he didn't know the half of it.
Social instincts are like the air we humans breath. I can talk about people flocking to successful "social media" products like Twitter or Facebook and why such products will never grow old, but it is very hard to explain exactly why such tools, generally speaking, will always be successful—are necessarily successful. These products (like the telephone, radio and television of an earlier time) appeal to humans at the most basic level of unconscious cognitive processing. Humans like to keep in touch!
Such unconscious cognition is of course impossible to observe directly in the mind, yet we directly observe the outcomes of that cognition all the time, and it is virtually impossible to make humans aware of the depth and scope of their social ties. A human is hardly human without them. A fish is not aware of the water it swims around in.
Thinking in terms of today's example, we might ask why does celebrity culture exist at all? Think about it. What is a celebrity? How do "celebrities" come into existence? Why do some people have millions and millions of Twitter followers while other people have only a few dozen? Why do so many humans have their heads buried in smart phones, even while they're driving or sitting in a social venue like a bar?
If you think hard about these questions and many others like them, you will start to see just how deep humans social instincts run. You will start to see how much of human behavior is guided by them—what you read, what you watch, what you believe, who you talk to, who you hang out with, how you spend your time generally.
Ironically, it was technology (the internet) which further enabled human social instincts to be more fully realized, and thus made a few people aware (if only peripherally) of how deep these instincts go. Trust me, high-tech entrepreneurs aren't finished trying to milk this deep vein because tapping into human social instincts is the money-making gift which keeps on giving. There's no end to this Pot O' Gold. The contemporary behaviors triggered by technology we see all around us today go much, much deeper than mere cultural conditioning (socialization, enculturation) might be able to explain.
And that was exactly the conclusion which Hoffman and Tan came to regarding humans following celebrity medical advice. And remember, Hoffman said—
There are deeply rooted biological, psychological and social forces [at play]... Our study's findings not only apply to health decisions, but [also to] any type of decision we make.
Yes, indeed! It is astonishing to think that humans are generally hard-wired to trust and obey charismatic authority figures, but there it is, and it goes much further than that. This is not to say that cultural conditioning is absent in these kinds of human interactions. It's clearly there, but why, then, does such conditioning exist in the first place? Obviously it must serve some evolutionary purpose. Why is such conditioning almost impossible to break out of? Why does herd behavior exist? Why does status-seeking exist? Why does social pressure to conform exist?
Bear in mind that Twitter, Facebook, celebrity culture and the rest are universal here on Earth. Given the means and opportunity to use these nifty social tools, and to satisfy instinctual urges to groom each other electronically regardless of distance without limit, virtually every young person on Earth will flock to these applications like a fish to water. We refer to socially instinctual behaviors because they are not bounded by particular cultures. Japan? Egypt? India? Ukraine? Brazil? Who cares?
Sometimes I look at all this astonishing stuff and all I can say is oh my god, would you look at that?
Hoocoodanode?
Dave - I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart (not sure where that expression came from.) Why? Because in this essay you have reinforced the high wall that separates me from the species to which I apparently belong.
In the video, Timothy Caulfield (ostensibly an academic) says that, "Everyone is fascinated by pop culture... everyone follows it... even if they don’t want to admit it."
Well, that confirms it. I am not a member of the 'everyone' he talks about. I detest celebrity culture as much as I detest seeing innocents slain by neo-fascist-capitalist-war-mongerers, and my opinion of those who 'follow' celebrities is somewhat lower than my estimation of the odor of a public toilet that has not been flushed for a month.
If the definition of humans is that they are hard-wired to trust and obey charismatic authority figures, then I am delighted to be an aberration in a biped shell.
Posted by: Oliver | 12/19/2013 at 05:28 PM