If Variety Is The Spice Of Life, Life May Be Getting A Little Less Spicy
Is herd mentality a good thing? Some might say that it leads to the best state of social equilibrium, while others might argue that people become overly enchanted with popular trends. There is no right answer to this question, but it is an interesting topic for research. In class, we did a small-scale experiment that pertains to this subject. Using I-clickers, everyone in the class entered whether their birthday was in the first 6 months of the year or the last 6 months of the year. We then performed an experiment in which everyone guessed which answer was in the majority based on information about small samples of the class. As it turned out, most people followed the group, and the majority of the class guessed incorrectly. Knowing the opinions of the crowd had a negative result. This effect is described in further detail here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576341280447107102.html
The above article discusses the negative impacts of herd mentality on groups of people. In one study described in the article, 144 Swiss students were isolated and asked various questions. When the results of many of the questions were averaged, the group’s answers were surprisingly accurate. The students were then shown the answers of the rest of the group and asked to answer the questions again. It’s reasonable to think that the average answer would then become closer to the correct answer, but that is not what happened. The range of answers became narrow as students started imitating each other’s answers, and the results became farther from the correct answer.
This study brings up an important question: Is the wisdom of a crowd less than the sum of its parts? The results of the study seem to indicate that the answer is yes. Smart individuals in a group will tend to gravitate toward less knowledgeable or reasonable conclusions simply because it is easy to follow the crowd. Think about it: Even if you were very confident in your answer, you would doubt it if 99% of people thought something else. As the article states, this means that over time everyone starts doing the same things, decreasing the range and variety of social trends. This effect has been magnified in the present day with the rise of the internet and other hyper-connected forms of media. Rather than being exposed to more things, people are still moving toward the same things. Algorithms such as PageRank promote this effect because they lead people to the most popular pages first, thereby increasing the popularity of already popular pages. This means people end up seeing and reading the same things. This has an impact on popular opinions about things like music and politics.
This research expands on our discussion of group mentality in class. It is an interesting phenomenon, and it is easy to argue that it has a negative impact on modern society.