Dan Ariely Quotes

I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible all by myself.

Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal - a sort of 'voting' situation. But once the threshold is reached, then everyone demands to do whatever it is.

Most of us are 'ultraconformists' when it comes to who we are most likely to follow... to socialise with, or even who we are most likely to hire.

When we find ourselves in groups or with charismatic individuals, we might do things we wouldn't ordinarily do.

Conformity may not always reign in the prosperous bourgeois suburb, but it ultimately always governs.

Herd pressure is to be judged by two things: first, its intensity, and second, its direction.

Conformity makes everything easier, if you can still breathe.

Peer pressure plays a huge role in people's desire to get married.

Just because so many conforming kids wake up every morning asking, 'What is everybody else going to wear today?' doesn't mean that they don't wish it were different. Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

I took drugs because we all took drugs.

We are more likely to cheat if we see others doing so. We tend to conform to accepted norms of reasonable behaviour, rather than adhere to strict rules.

Once the herd starts moving in one direction, it's very hard to turn it, even slightly.

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

Where I come from, you don't really dance, you know. I think I was at the age, where, I suppose, I wanted to do what all me friends were doing. I gave up dancing for a while, and then I realised I wasn't as good at football as I thought I was.

Most people live their life around what other people do.

When we were growing up, all of us kids were vegetarians. No one had asked me to stop eating meat - I just noticed everyone else around me had stopped, so I followed the crew.

Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

I just felt being part of my peer group so strongly. I was immersed in teen culture, but not taken in by it.

The whole system of society tells you what to do.

When people are free to do as we please, they usually imitate each other.

When in doubt, look at what everyone else is doing.

We all feel the urge to conform; it is the most normal of human desires.

I just feel like in society and in public, we have this unspoken expectation that we're all trying to meet. And there's so much pressure to try to fit in.

People say things they'll never do but then do them because they want to be a part of 'this great thing.'

Everyone was wearing jeans, so I started wearing slacks. I'd walk on, and people would laugh before I got to the mic because I looked stupid.