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"From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, a revelatory look at the power and potential of social context. As psychologists have long understood, social environments profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, but often for the worse. Less widely noted is that social influence is a two-way street: Our environments are in large part themselves a product of the choices we make. Society embraces regulations that limit physical harm to others, as when smoking restrictions are defended as protecting bystanders from secondhand smoke. But we have been slower to endorse parallel steps that discourage harmful social environments, as when regulators fail to note that the far greater harm caused when someone becomes a smoker is to make others more likely to smoke. In Under the Influence, Robert Frank attributes this regulatory asymmetry to the laudable belief that individuals should accept responsibility for their own behavior. Yet that belief, he argues, is fully compatible with public policies that encourage supportive social environments. Most parents hope, for example, that their children won't grow up to become smokers, bullies, tax cheats, sexual predators, or problem drinkers. But each of these hopes is less likely to be realized whenever such behaviors become more common. Such injuries are hard to measure, Frank acknowledges, but that's no reason for policymakers to ignore them. The good news is that a variety of simple policy measures could foster more supportive social environments without ushering in the dreaded nanny state or demanding painful sacrifices from anyone"--Page iv of Cover.
About the author
Robert H. Frank
With a new preface by the author
Summary
From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, bold new ideas for creating environments that promise a brighter future
Psychologists have long understood that social environments profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. But social influence is a two-way street—our environments are themselves products of our behavior. Under the Influence explains how to unlock the latent power of social context. It reveals how our environments encourage smoking, bullying, tax cheating, sexual predation, problem drinking, and wasteful energy use. We are building bigger houses, driving heavier cars, and engaging in a host of other activities that threaten the planet—mainly because that's what friends and neighbors do.
In the wake of the hottest years on record, only robust measures to curb greenhouse gases promise relief from more frequent and intense storms, droughts, flooding, wildfires, and famines. Robert Frank describes how the strongest predictor of our willingness to support climate-friendly policies, install solar panels, or buy an electric car is the number of people we know who have already done so. In the face of stakes that could not be higher, the book explains how we could redirect trillions of dollars annually in support of carbon-free energy sources, all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone.
Most of us would agree that we need to take responsibility for our own choices, but with more supportive social environments, each of us is more likely to make choices that benefit everyone. Under the Influence shows how.
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"An invaluable new book. . . . If policy-makers have any sense, this book will be as important a manual in the 2020s as Nudge was in the 2010s."---Felix Martin, New Statesman
