In more recent years, social psychology research has connected people’s names to decisions they make in whom to marry, what street to live on and what they do for a living — all based on how similar the names were to a person’s own name.
But University of Pennsylvania researcher Uri Simonsohn is stirring controversy by questioning how much our names really matter in making life’s more important decisions. Simonsohn examined whether people are likely to choose their workplaces based on how similar the company names are to their own.
The study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, is based on a sample of 438,000 Americans who had donated to political campaigns in 2004. It was designed to parallel a similar Belgian study that used a sample that included about a third of the general population and found people were overrepresented by 13 percent at businesses where the first three letters in the name matched those in their own names. (The raw Belgian data was unavailable for the new study.)
After controlling for people working at companies named for themselves or family members, as is common in law firms and other businesses, the effects of name similarity appeared to vanish, Simonsohn found. Most Popular Names in History
What’s in a name?
Regarding studies that have found a name-job link, “they’re finding reverse causality rather than some subconscious attraction to names that are similar to your name,” Simonsohn said. Baby Names Reveal More About Parents Than Ever Before
But Simonsohn’s findings were contradicted by Frederik Anseel, a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at Ghent University and co-author of the Belgian study.
“We do not really agree with Simonsohn’s points that the potential confounds eliminate the name-letter effect,” Anseel told LiveScience. Anseel has written a response currently under review by Psychological Science.
Cultural differences might account for the discrepancy. Simonsohn points to the possibility that a higher percentage of Americans may start their own businesses. (A direct comparison to Simonsohn’s study would be difficult, Anseel noted, because similar political donations are illegal in Belgium.) Anseel said, however, the effect of name similarity on decisions has been found in several countries around the world.
Anseel said that in light of Simonsohn’s paper, “the effect becomes less strong,” in his own research, but still stands.
Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, was skeptical that Simonsohn’s study means people don’t have an affinity for companies with names like their own.
“This is not representative of the population in any way, shape or form,” Twenge said of the sample, explaining that the people involved, being political donors, were likely richer and would be more likely to own their own businesses. “This happens to be a variable that affects the variables he’s analyzing.”
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