Afflicted With Allelomimesis -- Why People Behave as if They’re Broke When They’re Not

We’re in a recession, and for the small percentage of people who’ve lost their job as a result, it’s been tough. But for everyone else with a steady paycheck, it’s business as usual, right?

Well, not exactly. The Washington Post’s Michael S. Rosenwald wrote a piece titled “When You're Flush, But Acting Flat Broke” about people who are doing fine, financially, but are still cutting back on their household budgets. What causes this kind of behavior?

One woman in the story, Denise Kimberlin, is a government contractor. And even though she and her husband (also a contractor) recently got raises, they’ve lopped off over $1000 from their monthly budget. She said that after hearing stories about other people’s hardship she wonders, “What if?”

Kimberlin is imagining herself being in the same unfortunate situation as people who lost jobs and houses, and even though she isn’t in financial trouble, she’s acting like her neighbors who are. The scientific term for imitating your neighbors is called allelomimesis. It’s a behavior common to all social animals, from penguins to people. (Example: When you’re flying in a plane and it hits bad turbulence, you probably look at the other passengers to see if they have calm or panicked expressions, which either calms or panics you.)

Rosenwald’s well-researched piece is filled with good insights and information about the phenomenon of phantom poverty. It’s well-worth reading.

Mark Frauenfelder – Mark is the editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and the founder of the popular Boing Boing weblog. He was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998, and the founding editor of Wired Online.

Comments

[John Keys]

The link in the article is broken. Here is the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041503791.html

[Mark Frauenfelder]

Thanks, John. I added the link.