Demonstration effects are effects on the

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...

of individuals caused by observation of the actions of others and their consequences. The term is particularly used in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

and

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

to describe the fact that developments in one place will often act as a catalyst in another place.

Examples

Parents may take care of their parents to create a demonstration effect by which their children later care for them. Countries and local governments may adopt laws and

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

policies similar to those that appear to demonstrate success elsewhere. The proven success of the policies provides a demonstration effect that leads other governments to attempt to emulate that success.

Tourism

The demonstration effect has been observed as a natural consequence of tourism. One study argues that the demonstration effect can be broken down into four forms: exact imitation, deliberately inexact imitation, accidental inexact imitation, and social learning.

Economics

In economics, demonstration effects may help explain the spread of financial or economic crises like the

Asian financial crisis The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia and Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1 ...

. Investors do not know everything about the economic situation of countries where they invest. When investors see a country's economy collapse, however, they may question the safety of investments in other countries with similar economic policies. Some heterodox economists such as

James Duesenberry James Stemble Duesenberry (July 18, 1918 – October 5, 2009) was an American economist. He made a significant contribution to the Keynesian analysis of income and employment with his 1949 doctoral thesis ''Income, Saving and the Theory of Consu ...

and

Robert H. Frank Robert Harris Frank (born January 2, 1945) is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and a professor of economics at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He contributes to the "Economic View" ...

, following the original insights of

Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism. In his best-known book, ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' ...

(1899), have argued that awareness of the consumption habits of others tends to inspire emulation of these practices. Duesenberry (1949) gave the name "demonstration effect" to this phenomenon, arguing that it promoted unhappiness with current levels of consumption, which impacted savings rates and consequently opportunities for macroeconomic growth. Similarly,

Ragnar Nurkse Ragnar Wilhelm Nurkse (, Käru, Estonia (then Russian Empire) – 6 May 1959, Mont Pèlerin, Switzerland) was an Estonian-American economist and policy maker mainly in the fields of international finance and economic development. He is cons ...

(1953) argued that the exposure of a society to new goods or ways of living creates unhappiness with what had previously been acceptable consumption practices; he dubbed it the "international demonstration effect." He claimed that in

developing nations A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

, pressure to increase access to material goods rapidly increases, primarily because people "come into contact with superior goods or superior patterns of consumption, with new articles or new ways of meeting old wants." As a result, he argued, these people are "apt to feel after a while a certain restlessness and dissatisfaction. Their knowledge is extended, their imagination stimulated; new desires are aroused".

Political

In the late 18th century, the successful

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

may have provided a demonstration effect that sparked the subsequent

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. Political movements may be given a boost from the observed success of similar movements in other countries. The

domino effect A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect generated when a particular event triggers a chain of similar events. This term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically ...

thesis relates to this idea; it argued that

communist revolutions A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution often, but not necessarily, inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism. Depending on the type of government, socialism can be used as an intermediate stage ...

in some countries would spread to other countries.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Demonstration Effect Social psychology concepts