Mob Mentality and Black Friday
https://www.theburgergazette.com/5813/features/solutionsjournalism/mob-mentality-and-black-friday/
This article details a few examples of mob mentality, which is essentially similar to an information cascade. The example given in the article is certainly extreme, but it is interesting to see how it compares to the model for information cascades from class. In the example of stampeding over the worker, we see that each person has the decision of whether to walk over the worker on the floor or not, and they make decisions in a sequence as each customer enters the store after those who went before them. There is not much private info in this case, besides the person’s own morals about whether they should step over the worker or not, or their thoughts about what the repercussions would be for stepping on him.
Most importantly though is the info gained from the decisions earlier people made, which in this case was trampling the worker. Even though private info may say that this is not a good idea and that there would usually be legal consequences for doing so, seeing others make the decision to do so conveys the idea that it is okay, possibly because there are too many people taking part for any one person to be held accountable. Or, possibly there is something so valuable in the store that is worth trampling someone for that is part of other customers’ private info, and that idea causes a customer to be willing to force their way into the store without concern for others’ safety. In terms of the probabilities of either option being the best one liek what was discussed in class, in this scenario it would seem that the likelihood that storming the store with everyone else is the best option in this situation is high due to the mob of people doing so, even though actual probabilities are not able to be calculated.
The article also mentions how it is human nature to follow others when large groups of people take an action. The information cascade is a more rigorous explanation for how this works, and can be applied to many different situations where groups of people make decisions sequentially, whether actual probabilities are used or people make intuitive decisions just from watching others. The “mob mentality” can be thought of as just an information cascade at work.