Diffusion in Hockey Chants
The student section of Cornell Hockey games is bustling with activity, as students stand up, cheer, and chant at the players. Chants range from the last name of a player after they score to edgier chants such as “I’m blind, I’m deaf, I want to be a ref”. From the other side of the glass, it may sound like a coordinated effort, but each individual chanting had to make an independent decision to join the chant or not. Each chant is started by an individual, or more often a group of individuals coordinating. We’ll call that initial cluster the origin. Those near the origin will often also start to chant. Some people, however, will not join the chant. These people have a higher barrier to entry. They may start chanting when half the student section is chanting, or even three-quarters of the student section is chanting. Thus each individual has their own threshold to join a chant. This phenomenon has been studied by many different organizations.
This effect of following crowds is well known and documented. The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) analyzed a study where passer-byers walked past crowds of various sizes looking straight up. They found that 4% of people would stop for a single person looking up whereas 40% of people would stop for a crowd of 15 people or more looking straight up. In a Cornell hockey game, I would estimate that around 1 in 25 students (4%) might start a chant or join a single person chanting, whereas upwards of 40% will join 15 or more people. The (JPSP) conducted another study where a crowd of 15 people or more all looked in one direction and found that 86% of passer-byers would look in that direction. The (JPSP) essentially found that 86% of people would follow a somewhat rational behavior if a crowd did it, while 40% of people would follow a somewhat irrational behavior if they saw a crowd doing it. This equates well to Cornell Hockey fans chanting reasonable chants (players’ last names) and slightly more absurd chants (“I’m blind, I’m deaf, I want to be a ref”).
Milgram, S., Bickman, L., & Berkowitz, L. (1969). Note on the drawing power of crowds of different size. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13(2), 79–82. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0028070