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Key points
- It is a natural human tendency to copy other people’s behaviors.
- This so-called “herding” is easy, appears to offer protection, and may improve one’s reputation.
- But herding may have serious consequences, including physical danger to oneself and others.
- It is crucial to question others’ behaviors before adopting their views or copying their choices.
Imagine you’re out for an evening stroll in a foreign city, looking to find a restaurant for dinner. Once you reach the city centre, you are truly spoilt for choice. Dozens of bistros, eateries, bars, and diners string together, all with appetising menus and similar prices. How to pick the best place for a much-needed refreshment?
If you’re like most people, a simple cue is likely to sway your choice. You will look for the busiest restaurant with the most diners because its popularity is bound to reflect on the quality of food and service. But is this true?
In tourist areas, which lack regular, local customers, the number of diners is unlikely to hold information about the quality of the meal. Instead, bigger crowds could have come about at random, and here’s why. Early diners with no meaningful cues as to which restaurant to choose may have picked their evening eatery on a whim, for example selecting the place with the nicest name, the smiliest waiter, or the prettiest flowers on the tables. Subsequent passers-by may have misinterpreted their restaurant choice as a well-informed decision and blindly followed their example. This could have resulted in a snow-balling effect, whereby ever-increasing numbers of customers were attracted to the restaurant in question, creating a false impression of endorsement. In this case, following the example of others could have led to a suboptimal dinner choice in an overcrowded restaurant.
What is Herd Behaviour?
Spontaneously copying other people’s thoughts or choices or simply going with the crowd is often referred to as "herd behaviour." It is a frequent occurrence amongst humans as well as many other animals, a common example being sheep. Indeed, these particularly docile and obedient herd animals even inspired the creation of the fusion term “sheeple”, which combines the words “sheep” and “people” and is used to denote individuals with a particular propensity to follow others.
Herding can appear to make a lot of sense. In an earlier article, I discussed the so-called “wisdom of crowds”, which suggests that average judgements of large groups of people often outperform individual choices. Furthermore, following the crowd appears to offer protection and comfort—after all, there’s “safety in numbers”—whilst helping to maintain a favourable reputation. Finally, following the herd reduces the effort needed to make a personal or unique decision; it is therefore an easy option.
Psychology research has attempted to model herd behaviour and suggests that the phenomenon relies on the existence of social connections or patterns between individuals as well as specific mechanisms of passing on or transmitting information. A key prerequisite is the human ability to "mentalise", which means being able to read and interpret someone else’s mental state and using the information to explain their choices. This action of mentalising is responsible for people’s tendency to attribute meaning to choices by the herd, even if many behaviours may have come about at random.
Dangers of Following the Herd
Herd behaviours, while common and easy to explain, hold significant dangers. Contrary to the so-called “wisdom of crowds”, which emerges when the judgements of individual group members are independently collected to produce an average opinion, herd behaviours typically rely on so-called "information cascades", where people take on others’ beliefs or copy their choices without critically appraising the underlying reasons. This frequently leads to the imitation of irrational or simply stupid behaviours.
As a result, herding can have many undesirable outcomes, including adverse influences on consumer choices, like in the restaurant example above. Ill-informed dinner choices, however, pale in comparison with the much graver consequences of the examples below.
- Financial crashes: Imitating the crowd can have serious economic consequences. Rash panic buying or selling of stocks in an attempt to copy the choices of other investors, for example can lead to investment bubbles and crashes of the stock market. This was evidenced by the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s, which saw a rapidly rising overinvestment in internet companies. Most companies failed to turn the expected profit and cost investors billions of dollars.
- Evacuation procedures: Blindly following the herd can have grave consequences when trying to escape from danger. A prime example are evacuation attempts from buildings to save people inside from fires or earthquakes. As seen in historic examples like the Great East Japan Earthquake, herding may result in the entire crowd rushing for the same door, even if other exits are available. These so-called “asymmetric exit choices” inevitably hinder evacuation efforts and may result in avoidable injuries or even deaths.
- Violent riots: Crowds have the potential to pass on emotional reactions or even violent behaviours to others as seen in Gujarat’s 2002 violent religious outbursts. The large-scale anti-Muslim riots were triggered by a singular train attack that killed Hindu pilgrims. Herding behaviour became evident in the ever-increasing angry mobs, which imitated others’ aggressive actions.
Avoid Joining the “Sheeple”
As demonstrated by the examples above, blindly following the herd can be detrimental or even dangerous across many different decision contexts. So how can we resist the temptation of following the crowd and avoid joining the “sheeple”? Sadly, psychology research suggests that it’s surprisingly difficult to withstand the influences of the herd. In an experiment involving financial decision making, researchers found that warning messages about the potential errors of the crowd were surprisingly ineffective in helping customers make betters choices.
It appears there is no quick and easy fix to counter the lure of herd behaviour. Instead, long-term attitude changes may be necessary, which could involve individuals adopting more critical approaches towards their peers’ opinion, and questioning others’ behaviours as opposed to blindly following them. Remembering the disastrous outcomes of herding in the different contexts outlined above may provide the necessary incentive.
How will you avoid the “sheeple”?
