Implicit egotism makes us attracted to people and things with similar names as ours.
One evening last year, Kelly Hildebrandt was bored so searched the social networking website Facebook and was surprised when she came across a man with the exact same name as her own. Curious, Kelly sent this other Kelly a message and the two began talking on a daily basis. Within a year, they were engaged. That's right, do you Kelly Hilderbrandt solemnly swear to take...Kelly Hilderbrandt? Although it is a rare occurrence for two people to marry with the exact same name, this story actually reflects a basic psychological process that occurs more often than we like to think.
Implicit egotism refers to the idea that we naturally gravitate toward people, places, and things that resemble the self. For example, we strongly prefer the letters in our name and the numbers in our birthdate. Don't believe me? Then quickly jot down your three favorite letters in the alphabet......now, how many of those letters are in your name? Now do you believe me?
This preference for the letters in our name exists because we write down our names thousands of times over our lifetime, so we are more familiar with those letters in the alphabet, and research shows the more familiar something is, the more we like it. So what does this psychological factoid have to do with everyday life? Surprisingly, this preference for the self drives a lot of our decisions. For example, implicit egotism makes us attracted to people whose names are similar to our own. The Hildebrandts are just one example, but there are other couples in the media that fit this mold, including the relationship between Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz and the brief engagement of Paris Hilton to Paris Latsis. But even just a few similar letters is enough to increase attraction. In a series of studies by John Jones and colleagues, participants were more attracted to people whose surname shared letters with their own surname.
Although this may sound bizarre at first, the truth is that we all engage in this process when looking for a mate. Research shows time and again that the key factor in attraction is similarity - we are attracted to others that share our same values, level of education, past experiences and goals for the future. Essentially, we are trying to date ourselves. Birds of a feather certainly do flock together. That is not to say that we want an exact clone of ourselves, a few differences thrown in creates interest and excitement, but for the most part, we are looking for someone whose core foundation is identical to our own. And there is nothing necessarily wrong with this approach. It is much easier to maintain a relationship and raise children when both members of a couple see eye to eye.
But implicit egotism doesn't just influence who we are attracted to, it also influences other life decisions, including our choice of living location (e.g., more likely for Louis to move to St. Louis), our choice of occupation (e.g., more likely for Dennis and Denise to become dentists), and our choice of brand-name products (e.g., more likely that Chris would prefer Coke over Pepsi). It can even affect how students perform in school; students with names that begin with "A" perform better in class than students with names that begin with "D".
So, is there anything wrong with the fact that we love ourselves so much? I think like many things in life, Aristotle's golden mean applies here as well. Too little or too much self-love can be bad. Too little self-love, a.k.a. low self-esteem, is detrimental to ourselves, often resulting in depression and anxiety. But too much self-love leads to narcissism and is instead detrimental to those around us. For instance, people with high self-esteem are more likely to be bullies and engage in violent crime. Violent criminals often describe themselves as superior to others and their violent assaults are typically in response to a blow to their self-esteem (e.g., insult). That is something that the talk shows and self-help magazines neglect to mention whenever they suggest ways to increase your self-esteem.
Unfortunately, excessive self-love seems to be on the rise in our country. College students' scores on a measure of narcissism rose twice as fast during 2002- 2007 as it had during 1982-2006 (See Jean Twenge's blog "The Narcissism Epidemic" for more info). This steep incline can help to explain our society's recent obsessions with plastic surgery, YouTube, Twitter, sexting, and social networking websites.
So how do we put the brakes on this trend? How do we raise children to be confident without being narcissistic? First, it is important to set clear rules for your children and don't budge on them. By saying no and meaning it, you are refusing to give your child the power in the relationship. Living with rules and boundaries teaches children they are not the center of the universe. Second, avoid sending messages that communicate a "win at all cost" mentality. Narcissistic college students admit to their inflated self-views, but justify them by stating that overconfidence is required to survive the modern highly-competitive world. Confidence is something we want to instill in our children, but overconfidence will set them up with unrealistic expectations and encourage them to be too risky in their decisions. Finally, we need to teach our children empathy and compassion for others. These are qualities we often talk about but rarely model for our children.
