Social Experiment: Information Cascade
http://dailyoftheday.com/social-experiment-of-the-day-social-conformity/
The article and video (in the article) discuss social conformity. The video shows a social experiment that was done. A woman walked into an optometrist’s waiting room. The waiting room was full of other “patients” that were part of the experiment. A little after she sat down, there was a beep in the waiting room and all the patients stood up and sat down. The woman just looked around and after three beeps of this happening, she joined them in standing up and sitting down without knowing why they were doing it or even asking why. This continued for a while, and all the patients were called into the doctor’s office until she was the only one in the waiting room. She continued to stand every time there was a beep even when she was alone. Another patient came in (not part of the experiment/doesn’t know what’s happening) and observed her doing this, asked her why she was doing it which she responded to with “Everyone was doing it…so I thought I was supposed to,” and joined her in standing up and sitting down in the next beep. Soon the waiting room was full of new patients who all were standing up and sitting down after every beep without knowing why.
This is an example of an information cascade. The woman and every person after her inferred that the reason people were standing up every time they heard a beep was more powerful than their own private information so it made sense for them to join in standing up even though their private information gives them no reason to. They left their own information for inferences based on earlier people’s actions. The article argues that this is social conformity, but as what was said in lecture and stated in the textbook, it’s not always easy to tell an information cascade apart from social conformity. I don’t think the patients in the waiting room mindlessly followed the croud–i think they all thought there must be a good reason for everyone to stand up when it beeps so I will too.