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This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin. This will take just a minute.

Spend any time in a bar, and sooner or later you’ll hear, “I’ll have what she’s having.” It sounds like a bad pickup¹ line, but there may be an actual biological basis for this kind of alcohol copycat behavior. Because scientists have found that having the gene² for a certain dopamine receptor could predispose you to being influenced by the sight of other people drinking.

Volunteers were ushered³ into a lab set up to look like a pub. They were asked to do some busywork, then told that during the break they should help themselves to some beverages⁴. While they watched, shills planted by the scientists immediately liquored up.

The study subjects were then tracked to see how much they drank after watching others toss ‘em back. When the plants could be seen having just one drink, all the subjects drank similar amounts. But when the plants had at least three drinks, some participants drank twice as much as others. And DNA⁵ tests showed that the heavier drinkers had a particular variant⁶ of a dopamine receptor called DRD4. The work appears in the journal Psychological Science.

Next, the search for genes⁷ that make people order drinks with those little umbrellas.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin