title: Trickle-Down Preferences: Preferential Conformity to High Status Peers in Fashion Choices.
abstract: How much do our choices represent stable inner preferences versus social conformity? We examine conformity and consistency in sartorial choices surrounding a common life event of new norm exposure: relocation. A large-scale dataset of individual purchases of women's shoes (16,236 transactions) across five years and 2,007 women reveals a balance of conformity and consistency, moderated by changes in location socioeconomic status. Women conform to new local norms (i.e., average heel size) when moving to relatively higher status locations, but mostly ignore new local norms when moving to relatively lower status locations. In short, at periods of transition, it is the fashion norms of the rich that trickle down to consumers. These analyses provide the first naturalistic large-scale demonstration of the tension between psychological conformity and consistency, with real decisions in a highly visible context.
authors.affiliation: Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Galak
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kurt
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.affiliation: Independent Researcher, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Elbert
authors.affiliation: School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Strohminger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003132:Commerce; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010379:Peer Group; D012775:Shoes; D012919:Social Behavior; D012923:Social Class; D012925:Social Conformity; D055815:Young Adult