In this op-ed, Leif Stromnes, managing director of strategy and growth at DDB Australia, explores what’s in a name when it comes to choosing a profession and what marketers can learn from this.
In 1994, New Scientist magazine floated a hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work or interest that suit their names. It came about due to the large number of scientific articles that were submitted by authors with remarkably fitting surnames.
For example, an article on polar exploration by Daniel Snowman, an article on urology by authors D. Weedon and A.J. Splatt, and an article on animals by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox.
It was hardly a new or novel theory, however. Many cultures have long thought that one’s name determined the life lived.
According to a Nigerian proverb, “when a person is given a name, his gods accept it.”
The Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan certainly grew into his name handsomely, and his wife Patience was perhaps aptly named given that this is a trait that first ladies sorely need as their husbands ascend the political ladder.
Similarly, in ancient Rome, the predictive power of a person’s name was captured by the Latin proverb “nomen est nomen” meaning “the name is a sign.” This saying is still in use in English and in other languages such as French, German, Italian, Dutch and Polish.
After coining its name theory Nominative Determinism, New Scientist set about trying to prove its effect empirically.
There was initial enthusiasm when lawyer James Counsell was interviewed and he confessed that, like his father, brother and two relatives of the same name, from a very young age he was spurred to join the bar and could not remember ever wanting to do anything else.
“I remember as a child people saying to me, of course you are going to be a barrister because of your name. How much is down to the subconscious is difficult to say, but the fact that your name is similar may be a reason for showing more interest in a profession than you might otherwise. Any link in adult eyes might seem trivial but to someone in their formative years starting to think about their career it’s possible it might have a big effect,” he said.
Similarly, Sue Yoo, an American lawyer, said that when she was younger, people urged her to become a lawyer because of her name, which she thinks helped her decision.
In 2015, researchers Limb, Limb, Limb and Limb published a paper on the effect of surnames on medical specialisation. They looked at 313,445 entries in the medical register from the General Medical Council and identified surnames that were apt for the speciality; for example Woodcock for genitourinary medicine and Cox and Ball for urology! They found that the frequency of names relevant to medicine and to subspecialities were much greater than expected by chance.
So what are we to make of this? Are these examples the result of lady luck or is there more at play?
Social psychology might provide a clue.
We have long known that consistency is an immensely powerful human motive. The concept of cognitive dissonance, first coined in 1957 by researcher Leon Festinger, is widely accepted as the key psychological construct behind our burning desire to act in a manner that is stable and orderly. Quite simply, it is uncomfortable and mentally taxing to go against our pre-held beliefs, and even more difficult to act in a way that is discordant with action we have already taken.
In most circumstances a high degree of consistency is also associated with personal and intellectual strength. It is thought to be at the heart of logic, rationality and honesty.
On the other hand, inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait. The person whose beliefs, words, and deeds don’t match may be seen as indecisive, confused, two-faced, or even mentally ill.
For proof of this in action, we can revert once again to nominative determinism, or in this case nominative contra-determinism where people’s names contradict their professions or desired life paths. It is highly common in these circumstances for people to change their names to relieve the cognitive dissonance. Two examples that come to mind are would-be doctor Thomas Edward Kill who changed his name to Jirgensohn, and the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Sin, who dropped his surname altogether.
So how can marketers benefit from this human desire for consistency that is so powerful it makes people choose professions based on their names, and change their names when it does not suit their world view or desired image of themselves?
The two most powerful pressures that can be applied to make consistency a potent force for decision making are what social researcher Robert Cialdini calls outside pressure and inside pressure.
Outside pressure, according to Cialdini is a form of social proof where, “what those around us think is true of us is enormously important in determining what we ourselves think is true.” By subtly nudging a person into committing to a certain view of themselves, for example as a charitable, giving type, charity marketers can then ask for a donation by exploiting the consistency that this outside view creates.
Inside pressure on the other hand is an internalised motivation to act with consistency when that person has made a commitment to an action. This is why salesmen often start with a small sale first. The purpose is not to profit, but to get an initial commitment. By doing so they are subtly converting a prospect into a customer. This seemingly trivial transaction enters us into a commitment that can be exploited with a larger sale at a later date because of our need to be consistent.
As shown in these examples, the key to consistency is commitment. Once an active commitment is made, self-image is squeezed from both sides by consistency pressures. From the inside, there is a pressure to bring self-image into line with action. From the outside, there is a sneakier pressure—a tendency to adjust this image according to the way others perceive us.
But perhaps even more powerful than outside and inside pressure, consistency offers a shortcut through the density of modern life. Once we have made up our minds about an issue, stubborn consistency allows us a very appealing luxury: we really don’t have to think hard about the issue anymore.
This is a godsend in an environment where most people are overwhelmed, over stimulated, and over it. The savvy marketer can fuse the power of consistency with their products and services to ease the mental load and cleverly help people navigate their day with minimum fuss.
After all, as artist Sir Joshua Reynolds quipped, “There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labour of thinking.”
