I'll Have What She's Having: Mapping Social Behavior

by R. Alexander Bentley, Mark Earls, Michael J. O'Brien, John Maeda (Foreword by)

Overview

How we learn from those around us: an essential guide to understanding how people behave.

Humans are, first and foremost, social creatures. And this, according to the authors of I'll Have What She's Having, shapes—and explains—most of our choices. We're not just blindly driven by hard-wired instincts to hunt or gather or reproduce; our decisions are based on more than “nudges” exploiting individual cognitive quirks.

I'll Have What She's Having shows us how we use the brains of others to think for us and as storage space for knowledge about the world. The story zooms out from the individual to small groups to the complexities of populations. It describes, among other things, how buzzwords propagate and how ideas spread; how the swine flu scare became an epidemic; and how focused social learning by a few gets amplified as copying by the masses. It describes how ideas, behavior, and culture spread through the simple means of doing what others do.

It is notoriously difficult to change behavior. For every “Yes We Can” political slogan, there are thousands of “Just Say No” buttons. I'll Have What She's Having offers a practical map to help us navigate the complex world of social behavior, an essential guide for anyone who wants to understand how people behave and how to begin to change things.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262297981
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/26/2011
Series:	Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	419 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

R. Alexander Bentley is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee and coauthor of I'll Have What She's Having: Mapping Social Behavior and The Acceleration of Cultural Change: From Ancestors to Algorithms (both published by the MIT Press).

Mark Earls is a London-based author and consultant on marketing, communication, and behavior change.

Michael J. O'Brien is Provost and Professor of History at Texas A&M University–San Antonio and the coauthor of I'll Have What She's Having: Mapping Social Behavior and The Acceleration of Cultural Change: From Ancestors to Algorithms (both published by the MIT Press).

An internationally recognized leader at the intersection of design and technology, John Maeda is Executive Vice President/Chief Experience Officer at Publicis Sapient. He was the 16th President of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He is the author of Design by Numbers, The Laws of Simplicity, and Redesigning Leadership, all published by The MIT Press.

What People are Saying About This

John Kearon

" I'll Have What She's Having has profound implications for marketing. People are much less individual than we thought and much more influenced by other people than we realized." -- John Kearon,
Founder, CEO, and Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer Group PLC

Yoram (Jerry) Wind

Social networks and the power of word of mouth are increasingly important today. If you have been looking for social influence models corresponding to rational decision theory and behavioral economics, this is the book for you. Insightful examples and innovative mapping of collective behavior make this a fun and must-read book.

Grant McCracken

"Our community of shared ideas and practices comes from a process of imitation we are loath to acknowledge. (In fact our sharing comes from stealing.)
But let us not repeat the error here. Bentley, Earls, and O'Brien deserve our unstinting thanks for this thoroughly lively, elegant, intelligent, useful, and companionable book. I for one intend to borrow from it liberally. You should too."
-- Grant McCracken, anthropologist and author of Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation

Endorsement

Social networks and the power of word of mouth are increasingly important today. If you have been looking for social influence models corresponding to rational decision theory and behavioral economics, this is the book for you. Insightful examples and innovative mapping of collective behavior make this a fun and must-read book.

—Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Lauder Professor and Director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

From the Publisher

I'll Have What She's Having has profound implications for marketing. People are much less individual than we thought and much more influenced by other people than we realized.

—John Kearon, Founder, CEO, and Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer Group PLC

This book is a very sophisticated treatment of the most critical influence on consumer decision-making. Every marketing plan must include this thinking in order to have a chance of being successful.

— Robert Barocci, President and CEO, The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF)

Our community of shared ideas and practices comes from a process of imitation we are loath to acknowledge. (In fact our sharing comes from stealing.) But let us not repeat the error here. Bentley, Earls, and O'Brien deserve our unstinting thanks for this thoroughly lively, elegant, intelligent, useful, and companionable book. I for one intend to borrow from it liberally. You should too.

—Grant McCracken, anthropologist and author of Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation

Social networks and the power of word of mouth are increasingly important today. If you have been looking for social influence models corresponding to rational decision theory and behavioral economics, this is the book for you. Insightful examples and innovative mapping of collective behavior make this a fun and must-read book.

—Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Lauder Professor and Director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Jerry Wind

"Social networks and the power of word of mouth are increasingly important today. If you have been looking for social influence models corresponding to rational decision theory and behavioral economics, this is the book for you.
Insightful examples and innovative mapping of collective behavior make this a fun and must-read book." -- Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Lauder Professor and Director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania

Robert Barocci

"This book is a very sophisticated treatment of the most critical influence on consumer decision-making. Every marketing plan must include this thinking in order to have a chance of being successful." -- Robert Barocci, President and CEO, The Advertising Research Foundation
(ARF)

Editorial Reviews

[A] highly informative tool-kit for understanding the exchange of knowledge and behaviour between people and is a must-read for anyone engaged in marketing and social media.—Collyn Ahart, YCN—

It's fascinating, thought-provoking, and contains some really useful, practical structures around using data around a business to understand what sort of market you're in.

—John V. Willshire, Smithery—

From the Publisher

It's fascinating, thought-provoking, and contains some really useful, practical structures around using data around a business to understand what sort of market you're in.

—John V. Willshire, Smithery

Reviews

It's fascinating, thought-provoking, and contains some really useful, practical structures around using data around a business to understand what sort of market you're in.

Smithery - John V. Willshire

[A] highly informative tool-kit for understanding the exchange of knowledge and behaviour between people and is a must-read for anyone engaged in marketing and social media.

YCN - Collyn Ahart