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The bandwagon effect is the tendency for people to adopt certain behaviors, styles, or attitudes simply because others are doing so. More specifically, it is a cognitive bias by which
public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...
or behaviours can alter due to particular actions and beliefs rallying amongst the public. It is a psychological phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas,
fads and trends A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period. Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short- ...
increases with respect to the proportion of others who have already done so. As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon" regardless of the underlying evidence. Following others' actions or beliefs can occur because of conformism or deriving information from others. Much of the influence of the bandwagon effect comes from the desire to 'fit in' with peers; by making similar selections as other people, this is seen as a way to gain access to a particular social group. An example of this is
fashion trends The following is a chronological list of articles covering the history of Western fashion—the story of the changing fashions in clothing in countries under influence of the Western world⁠—from the 5th century to the present. History of fa ...
wherein the increasing popularity of a certain garment or style encourages more acceptance. When individuals make
rational Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an abi ...
choices based on the information they receive from others, economists have proposed that
information cascades An Information cascade or informational cascade is a phenomenon described in behavioral economics and network theory in which a number of people make the same decision in a sequential fashion. It is similar to, but distinct from herd behavior. An ...
can quickly form in which people ignore their personal information signals and follow the behaviour of others. Cascades explain why behaviour is fragile as people understand that their behaviour is based on a very limited amount of information. As a result, fads form easily but are also easily dislodged. The phenomenon is observed in various fields, such as
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...
,
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 ...
,
medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
, and
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
. In
social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...
, people's tendency to align their beliefs and behaviors with a group is known as '
herd mentality Herd mentality, mob mentality or pack mentality describes how people can be influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors on a largely emotional, rather than rational, basis. When individuals are affected by mob mentality, they may make dif ...
' or '
groupthink Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness ...
'. The reverse bandwagon effect (also known as the snob effect in certain contexts) is a cognitive bias that causes people to avoid doing something, because they believe that other people are doing it.


Origin

The phenomenon where ideas become adopted as result of their popularity has been apparent for some time. However, the metaphorical use of the term ''bandwagon'' in reference to this phenomenon began in 1848. A literal "bandwagon" is a
wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...
that carries a musical ensemble, or band, during the course of a parade, circus, or other entertainment event. The phrase "jump on the bandwagon" first appeared in American politics in 1848 during the
presidential campaign President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese fu ...
of
Zachary Taylor Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military leader who served as the 12th president of the United States from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to th ...
.
Dan Rice Dan Rice (January 23, 1823 – February 22, 1900) was an American entertainer of many talents, most famously as a clown, who was active before the American Civil War. At the height of his career, Rice was a household name. Dan Rice also coin ...
, a famous and popular circus clown of the time, invited Taylor to join his circus bandwagon. As Taylor gained more recognition and his campaign became more successful, people began saying that Taylor's political opponents ought to "jump on the bandwagon" themselves if they want to be associated with such success. Later, during the time of William Jennings Bryan's 1900 presidential campaign, bandwagons had become standard in campaigns, and the phrase "jump on the bandwagon" was used as a derogatory term, implying that people were associating themselves with success without considering that with which they associated themselves. Despite its emergence in the late 19th century, it was only rather recently that the theoretical background of bandwagon effects has been understood. One of the best-known experiments on the topic is the 1950s' Asch conformity experiment, which illustrates individual variation in the bandwagon effect. Academic study of the bandwagon effect especially gained interest in the 1980s, as scholars studied the effect of
public opinion polls An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...
on voter opinions.


Causes and factors

Individuals are highly influenced by the pressure and norms exerted by groups. As an idea or belief increases in popularity, people are more likely to adopt it; when seemingly everyone is doing something, there is an incredible pressure to conform. Individuals' impressions of public opinion or preference can originate from several sources. Some individual reasons behind the bandwagon effect include: * Efficiency — Bandwagoning serves as a mental shortcut, or
heuristic A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate ...
, allowing for decisions to be made quickly. It takes time for an individual to evaluate a behaviour or thought and decided upon it. *
Normative social influence Normative social influence is a type of social influence that leads to conformity. It is defined in social psychology as "...the influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them." The power of normative ...
( belonging) — People have the tendency to conform with others out of a desire to fit in with the crowd and gain approval from others. As conformity ensures some level of social
inclusion Inclusion or Include may refer to: Sociology * Social inclusion, aims to create an environment that supports equal opportunity for individuals and groups that form a society. ** Inclusion (disability rights), promotion of people with disabiliti ...
and acceptance, many people go along with the behaviours and/or ideas of their group in order to avoid being the odd one out. The '
spiral of silence The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. It states that an individual's perception of the distribution of public opinion influences that ...
' exemplifies this factor. * Informational social influence — People tend to conform with others out of a desire to be right, under the assumption that others may know something or may understand the situation better. In other words, people will support popular beliefs because they are seen as correct by the larger social group (the 'majority'). Moreover, when it seems as though the majority is doing a certain thing, ''not'' doing that thing becomes increasingly difficult. When individuals make
rational Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an abi ...
choices based on the information they receive from others, economists have proposed that
information cascades An Information cascade or informational cascade is a phenomenon described in behavioral economics and network theory in which a number of people make the same decision in a sequential fashion. It is similar to, but distinct from herd behavior. An ...
can quickly form in which people decide to ignore their personal information signals and follow the behaviour of others. * Fear of missing out — People who are anxious of 'missing out' of things that others are doing may be susceptible to the bandwagon effect. * Being on the 'winning side' — The desire to support a "winner" (or avoid supporting a "loser") can be what makes some susceptible to the bandwagon effect, such as in the case of voting for a candidate because they're in the lead. In politics, bandwagon effects can also come as result of indirect processes that are mediated by political actors. Perceptions of popular support may affect the choice of activists about which parties or candidates to support by donations or voluntary work in campaigns.


Spread

The bandwagon effect works through a self-reinforcing mechanism, and can spread quickly and on a large-scale through a
positive feedback loop Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in the ...
, whereby the more who are affected by it, the more likely other people are to be affected by it too. A new concept that is originally promoted by only a single advocate or a minimal group of advocates can quickly grow and become widely popular, even when sufficient supporting evidence is lacking. What happens is that a new concept gains a small following, which grows until it reaches a
critical mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fi ...
, until for example it begins being covered by mainstream media, at which point a large-scale bandwagon effect begins, which causes more people to support this concept, in increasingly large numbers. This can be seen as a result of the
availability cascade An availability cascade is a self-reinforcing cycle that explains the development of certain kinds of collective beliefs. A novel idea or insight, usually one that seems to explain a complex process in a simple or straightforward manner, gains rapid ...
, a self-reinforcing process through which a certain belief gains increasing prominence in public discourse.


Real-world examples


In politics

The bandwagon effect can take place in
voting Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holde ...
: it occurs on an individual scale where a voters opinion on vote preference can be altered due to the rising popularity of a candidate or a policy position. The aim for the change in preference is for the voter to end up picking the "winner's side" in the end. Voters are more so persuaded to do so in elections that are non-private or when the vote is highly publicised. The bandwagon effect has been applied to situations involving majority opinion, such as political outcomes, where people alter their opinions to the majority view. Such a shift in opinion can occur because individuals from the decisions of others, as in an
informational cascade An Information cascade or informational cascade is a phenomenon described in behavioral economics and network theory in which a number of people make the same decision in a sequential fashion. It is similar to, but distinct from herd behavior. ...
. Perceptions of popular support may affect the choice of activists about which parties or candidates to support by donations or voluntary work in campaigns. They may strategically funnel these resources to contenders perceived as well supported and thus electorally viable, thereby enabling them to run more powerful, and thus more influential campaigns.


In economics

American economist
Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...
has argued that the bandwagon effect is powerful enough to flip the demand curve to be upward sloping. A typical demand curve is downward sloping—as prices rise,
demand In economics, demand is the quantity of a good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. The relationship between price and quantity demand is also called the demand curve. Demand for a specific item ...
falls. However, according to Becker, an upward sloping would imply that even as prices rise, the demand rises.


Financial markets

The bandwagon effect comes about in two ways in
financial market A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial market ...
s. First, through price bubbles: these bubbles often happen in financial markets in which the price for a particularly popular
security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...
keeps on rising. This occurs when many
investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...
s line up to buy a security
bidding Bidding is an offer (often competitive) to set a price tag by an individual or business for a product or service ''or'' a demand that something be done. Bidding is used to determine the cost or value of something. Bidding can be performed ...
up the price, which in return attracts more investors. The price can rise beyond a certain point, causing the security to be highly overvalued. Second is
liquidity Liquidity is a concept in economics involving the convertibility of assets and obligations. It can include: * Market liquidity, the ease with which an asset can be sold * Accounting liquidity, the ability to meet cash obligations when due * Liq ...
holes: when unexpected news or events occur,
market participant The term market participant is another term for economic agent, an actor and more specifically a decision maker in a model of some aspect of the economy. For example, ''buyers'' and ''sellers'' are two common types of agents in partial equilibrium ...
s will typically stop trading activity until the situation becomes clear. This reduces the number of buyers and sellers in the market, causing liquidity to decrease significantly. The lack of liquidity leaves
price discovery In economics and finance, the price discovery process (also called price discovery mechanism) is the process of determining the price of an asset in the marketplace through the interactions of buyers and sellers. Overview Price discovery is diff ...
distorted and causes massive shifts in
asset prices In finance, valuation is the process of determining the present value (PV) of an asset. In a business context, it is often the hypothetical price that a third party would pay for a given asset. Valuations can be done on assets (for example, inve ...
, which can lead to increased panic, which further increases uncertainty, and the cycle continues.


Microeconomics

In microeconomics, bandwagon effects may play out in interactions of demand and preference. The bandwagon effect arises when people's preference for a commodity increases as the number of people buying it increases. Consumers may choose their product based on others' preferences believing that it is the superior product. This selection choice can be a result of directly observing the purchase choice of others or by observing the scarcity of a product compared to its competition as a result of the choice previous consumers have made. This scenario can also be seen in restaurants where the number of customers in a restaurant can persuade potential diners to eat there based on the perception that the food must be better than the competition due to its popularity. This interaction potentially disturbs the normal results of the theory of supply and demand, which assumes that consumers make buying decisions exclusively based on price and their own personal preference.


In medicine

Decisions made by medical professionals can also be influenced by the bandwagon effect. Particularly, the widespread use and support of now-disproven medical procedures throughout history can be attributed to their popularity at the time. Layton F. Rikkers (2002),
professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
of surgery at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...
, calls these prevailing practices medical bandwagons, which he defines as "the overwhelming acceptance of unproved but popular edicalideas." Medical bandwagons have led to inappropriate therapies for numerous patients, and have impeded the development of more appropriate treatment. One paper from 1979 on the topic of bandwagons of medicine describes how a new medical concept or treatment can gain momentum and become mainstream, as a result of a large-scale bandwagon effect: * The
news media The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public. These include news agencies, print media (newspapers, news magazines), broadcast news (radio and television), and ...
finds out about a new treatment and publicizes it, often by publishing pieces. * Various organizations, such as government agencies, research foundations, and private companies also promote the new treatment, typically because they have some vested interest in seeing it succeed. * The public picks up on the now-publicized treatment, and pressures medical practitioners to adopt it, especially when that treatment is perceived as being novel. * Doctors often want to accept the new treatment, because it offers a compelling solution to a difficult issue. * Since doctors have to consume large amounts of medical information in order to stay aware of the latest trends in their field, it is sometimes difficult for them to read new material in a sufficiently critical manner.


In sports

One who supports a particular sports team, despite having shown no interest in that team until it started gaining success, can be considered a " bandwagon fan."


In social networking

As an increasing number of people begin to use a specific social networking site or application, people are more likely to begin using those sites or applications. The bandwagon effect also


In fashion

The bandwagon effect can also affect the way the masses dress and can be responsible for clothing trends. People tend to want to dress in a manner that suites the current trend and will be influenced by those who they see often – normally celebrities. Such publicised figures will normally act as the catalyst for the style of the current period. Once a small group of consumers attempt to emulate a particular celebrity's dress choice more people tend to copy the style due to the pressure or want to fit in and be liked by their peers.


See also


References


Bibliography

* * * *


External links


Definition at Investopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bandwagon Effect Cognitive biases Conformity Crowd psychology Cultural trends Economics effects Political metaphors Propaganda techniques Revolution terminology