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Exploring Information Cascades in Social Experiments

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Health/story?id=1495038

The above news article describes an experiment in which the participants were asked to mentally rotate two 3D shapes, and determine whether or not they were the same. They were asked to write the answers down privately, and then say their answers aloud. However, all but one of the participants were given the answers, and this one participant was discovered to be saying aloud different answers from what he wrote down initially.

The article also explores another different experiment, in which dinner party guests were asked to eat dessert using only their mouths. This is considered a very strange habit that is not typically done, especially at dinner parties with total strangers. However, the guests appeared to go along with their hosts’ outlandish behavior because everyone else at the party seemed to be doing so.

The experiments described by the article tie in with what we discussed in class about information cascades. The participants in the experiments are clearly being influenced by information gained from previous participants, whether it is their decision to partake in strange dessert-eating activities, or their answer to the test question.

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