Does your last name always place you at the back of the line or last during roll call? Then you may prove more likely to jump on that Groupon deal or buy that sweater on sale, MSNBC reported Wednesday.
MSNBC said a study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that last names beginning with a letter found towards the end of the alphabet often cause people to jump at purchasing opportunities in a desire to be first. People with last names at the beginning of the alphabet tend to weigh their buying options more carefully because they possess more patience.
Researchers offered free basketball tickets and $500 for completing a survey in two separate studies. People with last names toward the end of the alphabet consistently responded first while people toward the beginning of the alphabet tended to trickle in later.
The study shows how elements of everyday life can determine early behavior patterns.
“What’s so interesting is that experiences that are so tiny that we don’t think they mean anything, do actually shape our behavior,” Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and chair of the psychology department at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, told MSNBC.