Little Things Count

Part 2: A is for Accountant
In the last blog (that you hopefully read) I discussed research suggesting that the mere colour of a persons clothing can strongly influence whether members of the opposite sex desire to date and have physical relations with them. And of course most people would be likely to be completely unaware of this. Thus, sometimes in life we can be a little ignorant about what is causing us to feel the way we do. However, the question is, does this really matter? Finding a woman slightly more attractive just because she has a red scarf draped around her neck isn’t really that big in the grand scheme of things is it? One could argue that it is, especially if you end up marrying that woman because the effect of the red scarf added that little bit more attraction that made you so intrigued by her. But this is all a bit hypothetical.

Slightly more dramatically research does suggest that extremely subtle factors could have significant influence on what we end up doing with the rest of our lives. Pelham et al 2002 report a series of studies based on previously well established findings that most people tend to have a favourable view of themselves and thus tend to prefer people, places and things they associate with themselves. Based on this, other research has shown that we even tend to have a strong implicit preference for the letters in our own names. Gary seems like to the letter G more so than other letters, and Lucy exhibits behaviour which suggests she has a preference towards the letter L - but this isn’t where it ends.

Pelham et al. were interested in examining whether these preferences towards the letters in our own names can influence major life decisions. Consulting numerous public records, telephone directories, death certificates and professional directories the researchers unearthed some seemingly bizarre results. They found that people were far more likely to live in areas, have careers in and vote for politicians whose names resembled their own first names. Larry is far more likely to be a lawyer than he is a dentist. Whilst the number of dentists named Dennis is disproportionately large.

Additionally, during the Bush-Gore US election individuals whose last names began with B and G were far more likely to contribute to the election funds of the Bush and Gore parties respectively. Out of every woman that gave birth in the state of Texas in 1926, the number of woman later marrying men who shared the same maiden name was 40% above what we would expect by chance.

Collectively these studies appear to suggest that the letters in names have drawn individuals towards certain career choices, election candidates and marriages. And of course nobody knows this is going on. It must be said that it is highly unlikely Larry next door will all of a sudden realise he wants to become a lawyer after several years in hairdressing, as the effect is quite small. But what it does suggest is that the simple letters in names can shift people towards careers that they wouldn’t necessarily have chosen if their parents had opted for a different name. If Chloe had been a Sarah there’s a chance she wouldn’t be cleaning for a living.

It’s fascinating to think that such a small and seemingly meaningless can exert some influence on ones life and to be completely oblivious to it.

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If you happen to know a Susie selling seashells in the Seychelles please forward the link to this blog and take perverse pleasure in watching her reaction.