Information cascades and mob mentality
http://source.southuniversity.edu/examining-the-mob-mentality-31395.aspx
This article talks about mob mentality and includes parts of an interview with Tamara Avant, a psychology program director at South University. She talks about mob mentality and why it occurs. A large point that she makes is that a group seems to make some behaviors acceptable that would not be acceptable otherwise. These individuals would never participate in such behaviors if they were on their own, but in large mob settings, they ignore their personal inhibitions and go with what everyone else is doing.
In class we learned that information cascades are when a person observes the actions of others engages in the same acts, despite the signals that he or she receives. So, even if they feel as though an action would be “bad,” if others around them are participating in said action they would not feel as “bad.” All of this groups together with mob mentality.
Within a mob, deindividuation begins to happen. The larger the group size, the less people feel like individuals and are more likely to go with the group. And the larger the group size and physical anonymity, the more likely the violence. Violence is not an idle action, and not one one normally participate in. However when people feel that their behavior can not be traced back to the,, they are more likely to break social norms and engage in violence. Within social cascades, people do not look to themselves but rather look to the group to see what they should do.
One important thing about mob mentality is that we are all surrounded by like-minded people. When our emotions are aroused, our thoughts can become clouded and we are easily manipulated. In a large group setting it only takes one action and we all will all follow along because we see others doing this action.
All of this is essentially information cascades. It is one way we can understand mob mentality and how we can see ways to handle these kinds of situation. What if, rather than leading the mob to violence, we find ways to resort to actions that would benefit the community?