The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
It's like something out of a Malcolm Gladwell book: your consumption habits are correlated to the letter with which your last name begins. Specifically, according to a new study that will be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, people with last names at the end of the alphabet are more likely to spend their money rashly than the rest of us. Help me make sense of this. Why would this be?
The researchers don't give a definitive explanation, but they do speculate that,
Since America's obsession with alphabetical order often forces the Zs to the back of the line in childhood, they suffer. They were always the last to get lunch in the cafeteria — sorry, Young, the other kids bought all the chocolate milk again — and had to beg for the teacher's attention from the back of the class. So later in life, when the Zs — and even the Zs who become As through marriage — see an item they really like for sale or are offered kind of some deal, they jump on it, afraid that supplies won't last. The chocolate milk is finally in front of them. So they grab it.
"For years, simply because of your name, you've received inequitable treatment," says Kurt Carlson, an assistant professor at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, and co-author of the paper to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research. "So when you get to exercise control, you seize on opportunity. It's a coping strategy, and over time becomes a natural way to respond."
To all the Youngs, and Thomas', and Wades and Zimmermans--does this theory ring true? And to everyone, do you buy this explanation? Or do you have one of your own?
I think the researchers offer a pretty compelling theory. But I would add this to their explanation: impatience, which is a powerful factor that motivates behavior. These rash spenders, who as children were always last in the lunch line, are probably sick and tired of waiting to get what they want, so they develop impulsive consumption habits later in life.
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May '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
They were always the last to get lunch in the cafeteria — sorry, Young, the other kids bought all the chocolate milk again — and had to beg for the teacher's attention from the back of the class.
This is simply not true. I'm a "W", by the way.
Edited on Feb 4, 2011 at 7:04amMay '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Also, I'm tighter than a tick.
Sep '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
That explains "W's" profligate spending while in the White House.
Jan '11
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
If you told me that late-alphabet people were more patient because of the situations you describe, I would be just as compelled to believe it.
May '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Americas obsession with alphabetical order! Obsession! Give me a break.
May '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Correct me if I'm wrong, but most names that start with Z come from Eastern Europe. Most W names are from Germany and the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Most Y names are probably Asian. Most A names are from the Middle East. And so on.
A general correlation between surnames and spending habits, if there is one, could be related to inherited cultural habits.
Jun '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
When I was a Brownie, the troop leader sometimes would ask the girls to line up, and the pushy ones ran to the front. From time to time, she'd walk to the back of the line & start handing out craft supplies, or snacks, or whatever. Eventually we learned to line up calmly like young ladies, as the pushing & running advantage was never certain.
I know that in my grammar school, we were more often seated according to academic average. Or by by height. Maybe because most of us kids had last names that started with O' or Mc, I never felt disadvantaged being towards the back of the alphabet when we were grouped that way. That's where all the cool kids were. Ha ha!
Jul '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
It seems to me that this from the article:
At the end of a college wine-evaluation class, the instructor told the class that they'd get $5 and a bottle of a wine if they participated in a 45-minute study a few days later. As expected, students with late-alphabet names were more likely to accept the offer, and did so faster.
indicates that late alphabet folks are a bunch of lushes. Of course they make hasty purchasing decisions.
I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know Emily, but many conclusions drawn from social scientific studies are bunk. I think the likelihood of bunk increases if the authors of the study have recommendations to fix "problems."
Sure enough,
As for teachers, the takeaway is clear. "There's may be no great alternatives to alphabetical order," says Carlson. "But flip it around every now and then. That's a reasonable way to balance things out."
Edited on Feb 4, 2011 at 7:58amMay '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
I hope not in the Wodehousean sense. Then again, it's 10am somewhere...
May '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
I think that this is one more study that will end up on the ash heap of declining correlation, a phenomenon this article describes.
And Pseudo, I'm gonna get you for the gratuitous crack about my guy, W! (snarl....)
Oct '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Is this the reason I get hungry and salivate every time I hear a bell??? Deterministic behavior is the sign of an immature and unexamined life. Even if every word of the "study" were true, unlike my dog, I can question my behavior and seek to bring change, that is, maturity, to my habits. In this way, I align them with my desired life goals. When I fail, it is an indication that I have not yet matured sufficiently to overcome undesirable habits, and need to run the course again, until I get it right.
Edited on Feb 4, 2011 at 8:37amSep '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Duane Oyen: I think that this is one more study that will end up on the ash heap of declining correlation, a phenomenon this article describes.
And Pseudo, I'm gonna get you for the gratuitous crack about my guy, W! (snarl....) · Feb 4 at 8:34a
I was only half serious, and was poking fun at the study. Since GWB was really a B not a W, and look at who's in there now an O!
Can you imagine what a President Zacharias would do?
Sep '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
"It's like something out of a Malcolm Gladwell book"
That says it all, doesn't it? This is pop sociology: flaky as pie crust.
Jun '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Just another worthless study trying to find a way to slam "fairness" and "sensitivity" down our throats when no problem exists. I'm sorry, and with all due respect, I loathe studies like this. Does this mean all M-Z's should be a protected group now? As said before, bunk.
Oct '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Based on this wonderfull study of human actions and attitudes..
Perform another using the same methodology on our prison populations...
Now there would be a real winner... You take it from there...
Oct '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Sounds like psychobabble to me (a "T" person). How about the Zimmermans and Wades and Turnbulls who never bought but instead always brought their lunches? And how about the classes that were arranged in alpha order by first name? And did schools really run out of chocolate milk every day? What, they got milk deliveries every day to re-stock their inventory...but they weren't smart enough after the 3rd consecutive day running out of choco milk to order more in the next day's delivery? I didn't realize just-in-time inventory started in our school lunchrooms.
What a bunch of hooey.
Nov '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
There are many psychological effects--some replicable, some controversial--related to people's names.
First, people robustly prefer letters in their own names to letters in other people's names, even controlling for normative letter frequency and liking. Zimmerman typically likes Z more than A, despite encountering more As than Zs.
Second, people gravitate towards things whose names share letters in their own name. Such things include places, jobs, people, and brands. People even contribute more money if relevant colleges and hurricanes share their first initial. The effects are small and sometimes debated. But the balance of evidence suggests they are real.
(Indeed, I recently found that people also prefer the sound of their names initials to the sound of parts of other people's name initials, and that they prefer a hypothetical perfume whose name sounds like their own name.)
All this points to the fact that the positivity of our self-evaluations rubs off on symbolic proxies for our selves (i.e., our name letters), and thence to things that resemble those proxies (things whose labels share those letters).
Put "name letter effect" and "implicit egoism" into Google Scholar to get a sense of research being done.
Oct '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
As a “W”, I've always been suspicious about the fact that the first two people to walk on the Moon were named Armstrong and Aldrin and the guy waiting for them in orbit was Collins.
Aug '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
As an "S" - I found there were occasional advantages to sitting in the back of the class. Out of sight, out of mind...
Oct '10
Re: The Last-Name Effect and Your Spending Patterns
Yes, but a Shepard was the first American ever to go up thataway, and a Yeager was the first to break the sound barrier. If my name were in the G-M range I'd be pretty ticked off.
Edited on Feb 4, 2011 at 7:13pm