Opposite Day
The Freakonomics blog has some interesting points about how to best change behavior. Specifically they point out that trying to get kids to stop doing something by making them think all their peers are doing it (read: all drug commercials) are exactly the wrong approach. As they explain in the post:
These commercials implicitly suggest that most of your peers are going to be using drugs and that you have to gird yourself to be above their influence. They are too close to the signs in the Petrified Forest. Instead of saying “Don’t do what most kids your age do,” they might say “Do what most kids your age do: just say no.”
Huh. Very interesting.
Hi, I'm 
Herd mentality holds true quite often…except for those who consciously distance themselves from the herd.
Schmidt & Jones set this message to music for The Fantastiks in 1960 with “Never Say No”, e.g.:
Why did the kids put beans in their ears?
No one can hear with beans in their ears.
After a while the reason appears.
They did it cause we said no.
(This was the essence of my mother’s parenting philosophy … and your’s :)
This is exactly what Obama is doing with America and trying to get people to change their behaviour. He used this tactic during campaigning
Did you read this Time Magazine article? http://is.gd/qKnC There’s this interesting note from Robert Cialdini –
“…when we think we’re out of step with our peers, the part of our brain that registers pain shifts into overdrive.” It’s an incredibly powerful spur to action.”
Interesting how everything is in the mind, huh.