Think about the simple act of driving to work in the morning. It involves perhaps 500 separate decisions, yet when we arrive we are hardly aware that we made a single one.
When it comes to decisions that affect our health, we are equally unconscious of most of the decisions – and shortcuts – we make each day. One of the most reliable and commonly used shortcuts is to look to other people for cues. If everyone is screaming and running past you in the other direction, it might be a good idea to follow suit. Yet, in most situations, the influence of others is much more subtle, and we are completely unaware that we’ve been influenced at all.
