You hear about “influencers” all the time today, but it wasn’t that long ago when we relied on true experts for help, not individuals who simply gained popularity online. A modern-day influencer is defined as “a person who has become well known through regular social media posts and is able to promote a product or service by recommending or using it online.” Take a moment to critically think about that — influencers, generally speaking, are not experts or hold advanced degrees, they instead are simply popular. Perhaps an influencer with good fashion taste might recommend what color shoes to wear with an outfit, but would you really want that same person telling you how to best study for calculus class, what foods are healthy to eat, or how to properly invest your money? It seems like today if an influencer has a big following, then his or her “credibility” often over-extends into areas that the person no expertise whatsoever. Is listening to your favorite influencer the best, healthiest way to make important life decisions? With each day that passes, top influencers seem to be gaining more credibility with their opinions — something that should be of concern to everyone.
The psychology of liking…
Most people sit up and listen when their doctor offers health advice, or their mechanic points out an issue with their car that needs attention. In these examples, both the doctor and mechanic are experts, and it is wise to listen to their advice about your health and car concerns. But what about that girl with a million followers, what would you do if she told you how to handle the chest pain you are experiencing, or the black smoke your car is blowing out the exhaust? She may not know anything about healthcare or cars, but she does have a lot of followers! Obviously the advice of the doctor and mechanic are better choices than a popular face on the internet, but strangely, that is not the choice we are always seeing. In increasingly more cases, we are deferring big life choices to influencers, the popularity contest winners of the internet, and we are giving them unlimited credibility simply because, ehhh, a lot of people like them??
Growing your popularity on the internet and establishing a following might make you attractive to businesses who want to lean on your appeal, and when those businesses are selling things like clothing, makeup, and food it may make sense to hear what an influencer has to say. Unfortunately, increasingly more influencers are gaining credibility pitching things they know little to nothing about — including products around healthcare, tax strategies, and banking decisions. Herein lies the problem, using our critical thinking to separate true experts from fun, non-expert influencers we see on the internet.
The psychology behind why we so quickly listen to influencers, even when we know they are speaking on topics they know little about, has to do with the psychology of liking. Robert Cialdini wrote about this in his book The Psychology of Influence, where he points out that liking is arguably the single most powerful form of influence — simply put, when we like a person, we are more likely to be persuaded by that person. When we apply this thinking to influencers, it becomes easy to see why influencers not only have the ability to impact our thinking on fluffy subjects (i.e. where to get the best hamburger in town), but if we like them enough, they can also persuade us to think in certain ways about much bigger, more important decisions that they know little to nothing about (i.e. finding the best doctor in town to treat your health condition).
Because we feel like we know many influencers from watching their videos, they feel like friends to us. As a result, we often turn off our critical thinking and fall back on a simple heuristic: “If a person sounds like they know what they’re talking about, they probably do.” And from there, we stop questioning. Especially if that person has millions of followers. It is the comfort we feel we have with influencers after seeing and hearing them talk on various random topics over the years that creates a vulnerability to where we give them significant more credibility, authority, and impact on our lives — when in reality we shouldn’t.
Final thoughts
Critical thinking is invaluable, and when we use our critical thinking we are pretty good at sorting our authority figures with credibility, from popular people on the internet who are just that — popular. Being a popular is not a bad thing, and for some, they have made millions of dollars as a result of their fan following. But being popular is not enough when it comes to advice around subjects the influencer may know little about — in these instances, you should always seek out authentic, expert opinions from individuals who know a lot about their respective fields.
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