Why We Like To Be Around People Without Interacting With Them

I have realized that a lot of people lack the introspective prowess to understand why they like something. Especially when asked why they prefer one thing over another that is substitutable or just very similar. Why do you want to go to Wendy’s instead of Burger King? Why did you buy Tylenol instead of Advil? When you ask people these questions it seems as if their choice was made before making a justification for their choice. Their sub-conscious makes the choice before their conscious mind understands why that choice was made.

This is understandable. Sometimes our sub-conscious identifies some sensual input that cues for a certain decision to be made. For example: John is strolling through downtown looking for a place to eat and finds one restaurant to be particularly intriguing. It may not seem apparent to John, at the time, why he made his choice. If I asked him for what reason he made his choice, he might pause and think up a justification on the spot. What he didn’t realize was that his decision had nothing to do with his elaborate justification. He really made his choice because he saw people that looked like him dining at the restaurant. His sub-conscious took this visual cue as validation for his decision.

This automatic decision-making algorithm we possess helped me make sense of the following social paradox: people say they like to go places where there are a lot of other people, however, when they get to those places they rarely interact with people other than their own group.

People say they like to go to the movies and restaurants versus renting a movie or ordering take-in, but why? Why bother going to these places if you expect to never once to interact with others? For the same reason John didn’t know why he chose his restaurant, we don’t know why we want to be surrounded by people. Our mind makes our decision for us, and we naively, and incorrectly, justify the decision after the fact.

What is really going on is social proof: a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior (Wikipedia). Obviously, if you are unsure of which restaurant to choose, you go to the one with more people because that might mean it is better; the social proof that occurs goes beyond this. The surplus of people you never interact with actually improve your movie/restaurant experience.

Watching people have fun, laugh, eat, chat, etc. makes you more confident in doing the same; it makes you feel like you’re doing the right thing for the moment. Watching all these positive behaviors also makes your group feel the same way. This effectively creates the right atmosphere for a good time. If, instead, you see others bonding with their families, you’ll feel it is appropriate to do the same. The list goes on; other people influence your mood no matter what they do. We often mistakenly associate our people-induced mood with the place we are in and not the people we are surrounded by. Hopefully this explains why the Olive Garden still exists.