Your friends have more info about you than you

In 'The Surprising Power of Neighborly Advice', Gilbert and collaborators examine an intriguing hypothesis: what is the best predictor of your future reaction to an event, your forecast given the event's info or the reaction of someone close in your social network?

Interestingly, they find that the reaction of someone close in your social network is the best predictor. Not surprisingly, they also find that people often think the contrary is true.

Two direct implications come to mind. The first, discussed by the authors, is on how we consider these two predictors to make decisions. The second, not discussed in the paper, is for recommender systems. It suggests recommendation is more effective using information about other people's reaction to events than about a user's stated preferences.