What influences you?

What influences you?    

A Veggie Challenge Design and Observation by Shubha BhatJune 3, 2010

habits.stanford.edu

Imagine yourself in Veggie Challenge Scenario 1....

~12pm: You notice your friends eating veggies

~9am: You receive an email in the morning reminding you to keep an eye out for your friends eating veggies.

~6pm: Your friends receive thank you notes for being good role models

~3pm: You report who you saw eating veggies, and how many veggies you ate that day

Do your friends' actions influence you to eat more veggies?

Imagine yourself in Veggie Challenge Scenario 2....~12pm: You are conscious of people watching what you eat

~9am: You receive an email from a friend thanking you OR criticizing you for eating/not eating veggies the day before

~3pm: You report how many veggies you ate that day

Do your friends' opinions influence you to eat more veggies?

Find out if you are like the  6 Stanford undergrads  

who participated in this  Veggie Challenge....

  =    

 ???

Who are these 6 Stanford Undergrads anyways?

• 5 freshman, 1 junior • All eat in dining halls with their friends

 • All are motivated to be healthy because they are

members of Health Advocacy Program, a student group that teaches an after-school nutrition education program in a local middle school.

When participants were faced with scenario 1, they reported eating 2

servings of veggies on avg per day, neither more or less than usual. 

Participants were NOT influenced by their friends' ACTIONS!

When participants were faced with scenario 2...

Participants WERE influenced by their friends' OPINIONS!

• So what influences us to take on healthy behaviors like eating veggies? 

 • Maybe what matters more about social networks is

not the modeling and copying of actions but the paranoia about opinions!

FOOD (ahem, veggies!)  FOR THOUGHT

Thanks to all my Stanford undergrad volunteers, BJ Fogg, Akshay Kothari and the

Health Habits class!