The decisions of our colleagues may affect us more than we realize

But the influence of peers does not stop in childhood. It also extends to the workplace, shaping how professionals make decisions.

Indeed, a growing body of research shows that professionals in a variety of industries are affected by those around them. Doctors, for example, are influenced by their peers when Writing recipes; Sales groups are made more productive when working with productive peers. and Biomedical scientists are shaped From the innovation of their peers and business choices.

So what factors in the workplace lead this influence from peer?

Jillian chownAssociate Professor of Administration and Organizations in Kellogg, collaborated with Carlos Inoue of Gies College to Answer this question in the context of a high -stage work environment: maternity halls and surgical rooms of Brazilian hospitals. In particular, they examined how medical doctors trained in obstetric and gynecology make the call to perform a caesarean section against vaginal tradition. They focused on their study of the Public Health System in Brazil, which has one of the highest rates of Caesarian births in the world. 56 % of births are delivered through C-section, significantly higher than the rate of 15 % Recommended by the World Health Organization.

Chown and Inoue investigated how much the influence of the peers formed these critical medical decisions.

“We have realized that if doctors have this tendency to be more or less aggressive in terms of the choice to perform a C section, this tendency can spread to their colleagues around them,” Chown says. “Maybe in some cases it is good and some are bad, but now we just don’t know much about how the influence of peers occurs in this type of frame or in its consequences.”

To this end, the researchers analyzed detailed data covering more than five million births by 16,500 doctors in 915 public hospitals in Brazil.

They found that when doctors worked along with a peer that tends to perform more C departments than expected, their chance of performing the process has also increased. In addition, doctors were more sensitive to the influence of a peer under two circumstances: if they had similar labor responsibilities in this peer and if they had a greater variety of daily responsibilities than most doctors in the same role.

“The idea that making expert decisions is pliable is a bit annoying,” Chown says. “That could be so influenced by contextual factors such as who works together or how his work is structured, raises some interesting and potentially alarming questions about the nature of expertise and decision -making in these types of jobs.”

Quantification of a practical doctor style

Brazilian public hospitals have proven to be an extremely suitable environment for the study of peer influence. The rich, detailed data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health allowed the researchers to closely monitor the work of the doctors (recorded in claims), as well as the details and circumstances of births from 2012 to 2017.

Using this extremely detailed data set, the researchers created a statistical model to determine how likely it was a C section for each birth. The model incorporated factors, including the mother’s age, whether it had previous C sections, or pregnancy included multiple babies and fetal position. The model confirmed the clinical guidelines: older mothers, those with previous C-sections, and those carrying multiple babies were more likely to receive a C.

Chown and Inoue then created a second statistical model that appreciated the personal tendency of each doctor to perform sections C. This model is checked for mother and pregnancy characteristics, allowing them to assign each physician a “internship” rating between zero and one or higher prices.

“We could take, for example, the hundreds of births that a given doctor took place during our sampling and say:” We would predict that 50 of them are vaginal traditions based on medical agents, but for this doctor, only 20 were over. ” C cross sections while others were more conservative ”.

The ingredients of influence

Through their analyzes, the researchers found that doctors were more likely to perform C-sections when working in a shift with a colleague who was more aggressive in their style of practice (that is, they were more likely to perform a C-section than their model would predict). Specifically, doctors were a percentage of points more likely to perform a C-section for each 0.06 increase in their documents’ internship scores. During the five -year study period, this was translated into an additional 53,000 C segments of nearly five million births.

In addition, two main factors magnify this influence of peer: variety of tasks and work similarity.

First, doctors who performed a wide variety of medical procedures – including clinical consultations and other surgeries – were more sensitive to peer influence. The variety of Chown and Inoue work on the basis of the extent to which the work of doctors was scattered on different duties, where a higher score indicates a greater variety of duties. The effect of peer influence was 73 % higher (4 percentage points) when the variety of work was a standard deviation higher.

Why? Researchers believe that doctors with a wide range of responsibilities may feel less confident about each type of process, making them more likely to be affected by their colleagues.

Secondly, the more similar the daily duties of a doctor were to those of their peers, the stronger the influence of the peers.

The researchers measured this by creating a “work vector” (or representation of work) for each doctor and then counting how similar these work bodies were to doctors working in the same displacement. The effect of peer influence was 95 % higher (3 percentage points) for each increase in the similarity of a standard performance. In other words, the daily duties of the closest doctors resemble the duties of a peer, the more likely they would be affected by this peer. This pattern, the researchers say, can come from the increased opportunity that colleagues have with similar tasks for exchanging information and practice style.

Finally, the influence of the peers was particularly strong when the best course of action-C-section on the vaginal tradition-was uncertain. In these ambiguous cases, it appeared that doctors were actively seeking inflows from peers to guide their decisions. “When work is uncertain,” the researchers write, “it can increase a person’s motivation to look for others who can provide advice.”

Influence as a force forever

Influence of peerings can be a powerful force -which has only individual decisions, but also the wider practices in the workplace. Whether its effects are positive or negative often depends on how organizations shape their work and their interactions. And Chown believes that it often depends on leaders to decide who they will be.

“One thing that leaders can do is deliberately about who affects whom,” he says. “With the careful structure of the groups and the assignment of roles, organizations can encourage the positive influence of peerings and possibly limit the spread of less respiratory behaviors.”

For example, in maternity areas, if the aim is to reduce unnecessary C cross sections, hospital administrators could “ensure that doctors whose practical styles favor vaginal traditions to participate more in the training of new doctors or to be assigned to shifts.” On the contrary, “doctors with a stronger preference for C divisions could be assigned to high risk cases where it is known in front of the time that a C segment is likely to be required.”

These ideas can be applied to many workplaces beyond healthcare, from corporate groups to law firms and investment banks. Managers can strategically shape the influence of peers by planning work environments that enhance positive learning and best practices.

By carefully studying the power of peer influence, says Chown, organizations can shape behaviors, improve decision-making and lead better results-not only in medicine, but in all industries.