The Bandwagon Effect and Crowd Behaviiour
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 3:48 am
Here are some more scientific studies to prove that the reformist/progressive movement was just a fad/trend and people who joined in it have no clue why they are doing what they are doing? They are just brainwashed by their corrupt leaders and failed to rationally question their motives and actions in causing a fracture in the communal harmony of a peaceful society.
I had already proved the above point in the earlier topic “The Monkey Banana and Water Spray experiment”.
But for those who still don’t believe or don’t want to believe in the scientific evidence of their victimisation by their corrupt leaders, here’s some more food for thought.
The bandwagon effect, closely related to opportunism, is a phenomenon—observed primarily within the fields of microeconomics, political science, and behaviorism—that people often do and believe things merely because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often called herd instinct, though strictly speaking, this effect is not a result of herd instinct. The bandwagon effect is the reason for the bandwagon fallacy's success.
The bandwagon effect is well documented in behavioral science and has many applications. The general rule is that conduct or beliefs spread among people, as fads and trends clearly do, with "the probability of any individual adopting it increasing with the proportion who have already done so". As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon" regardless of the underlying evidence. The tendency to follow the actions or beliefs of others can occur because individuals directly prefer to conform, or because individuals derive information from others. Both explanations have been used for evidence of conformity in psychological experiments. For example, social pressure has been used to explain Asch's conformity experiments, and information has been used to explain Sherif's autokinetic experiment.
When individuals make rational choices based on the information they receive from others, economists have proposed that information cascades can quickly form in which people decide to ignore their personal information signals and follow the behavior of others. Cascades explain why behavior is fragile—people understand that they are based on very limited information. As a result, fads form easily but are also easily dislodged. Such informational effects have been used to explain political bandwagons.
Social scientists have developed theories to explain crowd behavior.
1. Contagion Theory - the Contagion Theory was formulated by Gustave Le Bon. According to him, crowds exert a hypnotic influence over their members. Shielded by their anonymity, large numbers of people abandon personal responsibility and surrender to the contagious emotions of the crowd. A crowd thus assumes a life of its own, stirring up emotions, and driving people toward irrational, even violent action. Le Bon's Theory, although one of the earliest explanations of crowd behavior, is still used by many people.
2. Convergence Theory - whereas the Contagion Theory states that crowds cause people to act in a certain way, Convergence theory states that people who want to act in a certain way come together to form crowds. It asserts that people with similar attributes find other like-minded persons with whom they can release underlying tendencies. People sometimes do things in a crowd that they would not have the courage to do alone because crowds can diffuse responsibility. Crowds, in addition, can intensify a sentiment simply by creating a critical mass of like-minded people.
3. Emergent-Norm Theory - according to Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian, crowds begin as collectivities composed of people with mixed interests and motives. Especially in the case of less stable crowds—expressive, acting and protest crowds—norms may be vague and changing, as when one person decides to break the glass windows of a store and others join in and begin looting merchandise. In short, people in crowds make their own rules as they go along.
Decision-making plays a major role in crowd behavior, although casual observes of the crowd may not realize it. In emergent-norm theory, people in a crowd take on different roles: some step forward as leaders, others become followers, inactive bystanders, or even opponents.
For further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_behavior
I had already proved the above point in the earlier topic “The Monkey Banana and Water Spray experiment”.
But for those who still don’t believe or don’t want to believe in the scientific evidence of their victimisation by their corrupt leaders, here’s some more food for thought.
The bandwagon effect, closely related to opportunism, is a phenomenon—observed primarily within the fields of microeconomics, political science, and behaviorism—that people often do and believe things merely because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often called herd instinct, though strictly speaking, this effect is not a result of herd instinct. The bandwagon effect is the reason for the bandwagon fallacy's success.
The bandwagon effect is well documented in behavioral science and has many applications. The general rule is that conduct or beliefs spread among people, as fads and trends clearly do, with "the probability of any individual adopting it increasing with the proportion who have already done so". As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon" regardless of the underlying evidence. The tendency to follow the actions or beliefs of others can occur because individuals directly prefer to conform, or because individuals derive information from others. Both explanations have been used for evidence of conformity in psychological experiments. For example, social pressure has been used to explain Asch's conformity experiments, and information has been used to explain Sherif's autokinetic experiment.
When individuals make rational choices based on the information they receive from others, economists have proposed that information cascades can quickly form in which people decide to ignore their personal information signals and follow the behavior of others. Cascades explain why behavior is fragile—people understand that they are based on very limited information. As a result, fads form easily but are also easily dislodged. Such informational effects have been used to explain political bandwagons.
Social scientists have developed theories to explain crowd behavior.
1. Contagion Theory - the Contagion Theory was formulated by Gustave Le Bon. According to him, crowds exert a hypnotic influence over their members. Shielded by their anonymity, large numbers of people abandon personal responsibility and surrender to the contagious emotions of the crowd. A crowd thus assumes a life of its own, stirring up emotions, and driving people toward irrational, even violent action. Le Bon's Theory, although one of the earliest explanations of crowd behavior, is still used by many people.
2. Convergence Theory - whereas the Contagion Theory states that crowds cause people to act in a certain way, Convergence theory states that people who want to act in a certain way come together to form crowds. It asserts that people with similar attributes find other like-minded persons with whom they can release underlying tendencies. People sometimes do things in a crowd that they would not have the courage to do alone because crowds can diffuse responsibility. Crowds, in addition, can intensify a sentiment simply by creating a critical mass of like-minded people.
3. Emergent-Norm Theory - according to Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian, crowds begin as collectivities composed of people with mixed interests and motives. Especially in the case of less stable crowds—expressive, acting and protest crowds—norms may be vague and changing, as when one person decides to break the glass windows of a store and others join in and begin looting merchandise. In short, people in crowds make their own rules as they go along.
Decision-making plays a major role in crowd behavior, although casual observes of the crowd may not realize it. In emergent-norm theory, people in a crowd take on different roles: some step forward as leaders, others become followers, inactive bystanders, or even opponents.
For further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_behavior
