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social influence
You follow successful people even when their methods are flawed.
Prestige bias is the tendency to copy the behaviors of high-status individuals regardless of whether the behavior contributes to their success.
Humans evolved to mimic successful group members as a heuristic for survival. If you observe someone successful acting a certain way, your brain automatically tags that behavior as 'useful,' even if it is merely a personal quirk unrelated to their achievements.
You copy the status, not the strategy.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Henrich and Gil-White, 2001
- What the check found
- While the specific wording is a synthesis of the theory presented by Henrich and Gil-White (2001), the claim accurately reflects the widely accepted understanding of prestige bias in evolutionary anthropology.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.