bandwagon effect

"The Bandwagon Effect, also known as social proof or "cromo effect", is the observation that people often do and believe things because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often pejoratively called herding instinct, particularly when applied to adolescents. People tend to follow the crowd without examining the merits of a particular thing.

During the 1992 U.S. presidential election, Vicki G. Morwitz and Carol Pluzinski conducted a study, which was published in The Journal of Consumer Research. At a large northeastern university, some of 214 volunteer business students were given the results of student and national polls indicating that Bill Clinton was in the lead. Others were not exposed to the results of the polls. Several students who had intended to vote for Bush changed their minds after seeing the poll results (Morwitz and Pluzinski 58-64)." From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Sociology always amazes me. And I'll like to read more about it someday. This social theory just highlights and scorns on the naivety of our actions.

What we act upon, is based on what we believe. But our perceptions/belief towards a person/thing are so easily fooled into another's opinion, so greatly shaped by other people's opinion, just because the majority thinks that way. Often, we do not realise that we are falling into a trend, especially in the case of cliques. Sadly, when trapped in this situation, one does not consider the falseness or truthfulness of matters when it happens.

What dOes happens, is that no credit will be given when credit is due, or give vindication when one mistakes another for something else.

Understandably, most of us choose to stay in line within the majority's opinion, in order to stay in the favour of others. There's just one thing to note: this bandwagon effect applies particularly to - adolescents.