Are we just sheep?
People are often influenced by each other, creating what has been called the “herd effect” of people following the crowd, because it seems to them to be the best decision. As discussed in class, there are different effects to consider when making a decision that might be influenced by the crowd. Some effects are informational, while others are direct benefits.
Research by Torney et al showed that people rely on social information and evolve to be easily influenced by their neighbors, which is due to a conflict of individual and group interest. As a result, group decision-making is not optimal. Tourney et al’s results showed that social groups shouldn’t be expected to make good decisions. In other words, a desire to be included in the group can lead people to make sub optimal decisions and the entire group suffers from those poor decisions.
Why is this the case? Copying other people can be useful. In terms of informational benefits, perhaps you think others have better information than you do and it is easier to copy than get your own information. In terms of direct benefits, one example of a benefit to following the crowd is purchasing a certain kind of phone: if everyone has an Android phone and you have a Google phone, your phone is likely to be incompatible with everyone else’s phone, even if it might be better. Although your phone might be better and cheaper, due to herd mentality the entire group has suffered from poor decisions.
Tourney et al’s research found that “groups become unable to escape from dominant, widely held opinions.” This can be a dangerous mentality, as poor choices or minority opinions can spiral out of control, especially with the internet. We have seen recently a great amount of viral scandals, which largely arise from herd mentality. One person might make a poorly worded tweet intended as a joke and they quickly become the victim of a large amount of abuse. This was the case for Justine Sacco and the tweet that ruined her life in just a few hours. One person may have seen her tweet as a racist remark and re-tweeted to their activist friends, who saw Justine Sacco’s tweet in this context and moved it forward, and so on.
Resources:
http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/103/20140893.full#sec-5
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141216212049.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html