Friends Shouldn’t Let Friends Make Recommendations

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MP Guru
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Facebook users sent a strong message to the company in November: don’t share our online buying information. But how valuable is this information among friends?

Research by Professors Gita Johar (CBS) and Andrew Gershoff (Michigan) concluded that while our close friends have influence over our purchasing decisions, these same friends are no better than acquaintances in knowing our tastes.

Still, online recommending agents are capitalizing on the assumption that friends know us best.

“We want to believe that we are important to others, particularly to others we care about,” the researchers say. “From a normative standpoint, you’d be better off not trusting your friends as much, because they don’t know you as well as you think.”



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