What is the herd mentality in three-dimensional triggers?

Following the herd mentality, that is, individuals in the group under the influence or pressure, give up their own views or against their own views to make their own speech, behavior and the phenomenon of the group to maintain the same, that is, usually referred to as "follow the crowd". The herd behavior, generally refers to the tendency of group members to follow the group's behavior. That is, when he finds his own behavior and opinions are inconsistent with the group or disagree with the majority of the group, will feel a kind of pressure, which will motivate him to take the same behavior with the group. [2]

Experiment

The 1956 Ashey Subordination Experiment was designed to study the specific manifestations of the phenomenon of subordination, its emergence and its causes. The experiment was conducted with college students as subjects, seven in each group, seated in rows, six of whom were pre-arranged experiment collaborators and only one of whom was a true subject. The experimenter presented the group with two cards at a time, one of which had a standard line X drawn on it, and the other had three straight lines A, B, and C. The length of X was clearly equal to the length of one of the three lines A, B, and C. The experimenter asked the subjects to judge the length of X. The experimenter also asked them to judge the length of X. The experimenter asked them to judge the length of X. The experimenter asked them to judge the length of X. The experimenter asked the subjects to judge which of the three lines A, B, and C the line X was equal in length to. The order indicated by the experimenter always placed the real subjects last. The first to the sixth test everyone did not differ, the sixth to the twelfth time the first six subjects according to the prior request intentionally say the wrong, thereby observing the subject's response to whether the occurrence of herd behavior. [3]

Ashi's Subordination Experiment

The results of the experiment were interesting, with a wide range of responses, with 25% of the subjects sticking to their judgments from start to finish and remaining unaffected, while more than 50% listened to the experimental collaborator's erroneous judgments for more than six experiments, and even 5% of subjects demonstrated a of blind adherence. Dividing the total number of occurrences of submissive behavior by the number of subjects and then by the number of experiments yields an incidence of submissive behavior of about 33%, or one-third. [3]

Steps of Ashi's experiment

After the experiment, Ashi made an analysis of the 25% of subjects who stood their ground and summarized the reasons why they did not choose to follow the crowd:

(1) Their judgments from the beginning to the end were based on their own true thoughts, not on what people think. They didn't choose to follow the crowd in the first six real experiments, so they still habitually said what they thought when others were deliberately wrong later on, only this time their results were different from the majority. [4]

(2) They also experience anxiety when their opinion disagrees with the majority. It's just that they can get rid of the anxiety as quickly as possible, and they don't let it sway their judgment. [4]

Ashi also interviewed subjects who follow the crowd and summarized three types of followership:

(1) When subjects do use the reactions of others as a frame of reference, they are wrong in their observations and perceptual distortions occur. [3]

(2) The subject realizes that he or she sees differently than others, but believes that most people are always more correct than he or she is, and judgmental distortion occurs. [3]

(3) Behavioral distortion occurs when the subject knows that everyone else is wrong, but follows the wrong response. [3]

Mechanisms of Influence

Extended from Ash's experiments, the mechanisms of influence of following the crowd can be categorized into two types, one originating from informational pressures and the other from normative pressures. [3]

(1) Information pressure: experience leads people to believe that the majority has a higher chance of being right, and the more ambiguous the situation is, the more the frame of reference is lacking, the more people believe the majority and the more they follow the herd.

In the 1930s, Sharif's herd experiment applied the phenomenon of swimming to the study of herd behavior. The experiment went like this, Sharif first told subjects that points of light in a dark environment were moving, and then asked people to judge how far a point of light was moving. Since people generally do not have knowledge of the traveling illusion, they made a variety of distance judgments. Sharif then had an experimental assistant point out the scale of the distance judgments in an affirmative tone, and it was found that after a few experiments, the subjects' distance judgments became closer and closer to the distance judgments made by the experimental assistant. [3]

The social psychological basis for this misjudgment phenomenon is that all subjects, being in a situation in which they cannot be sure of themselves, are thus forced to slowly conform to the judgments of others. The conclusion of the experiment was that people in an uninformed, unsure of themselves situation, there is a herd behavior. And this herd behavior was caused by the lack of necessary information, not blind obedience. Because in Sharif's experiment, if the experimenter told the subjects that there was in fact no movement of the light point, and that the movement of the light point they felt was only a visual illusion, they immediately stopped following the crowd. This illustrates that in the absence of necessary information, we unconsciously gravitate toward the ideas of others, and when supported by reliable information, this submissive behavior disappears. Information pressure can occur when people are uncertain or when they disagree. Information pressure can bring about tangible cognitive change. [3]

(2) Normative Pressure: Individuals in a group are often reluctant to go against the norms of the group and be seen as transgressors by the other members, and are afraid of being different and isolated as an outlier, so they adopt the majority opinion.

There is no doubt that normative pressure should be the main cause of the subjects' herd behavior in the Asch herd experiment. The difference in length between the three comparative line segments is so obvious that it is easy to see which one is as long as the standard one, and all the subjects make the correct judgment without the interference of the wrong answer, from which it can be seen that the result is almost obvious, and that there is no effect of informational pressure, but when everyone except themselves says wrong on purpose, people will still change their statements, even if they are quite know it is wrong. Normative pressure doesn't lead to cognitive change, and followers don't believe the majority opinion, they just don't want to be the first to tell the truth, for fear of being "outgunned. [3]

The strength of normative pressure can be altered by a number of factors. In the Asch experiment, if privacy is increased (e.g., each subject is asked individually for his or her answer), if answers are given anonymously (each person writes his or her answer on a slip of paper and does not have to give it out), or if the number of onlookers is reduced, subjects are more likely to stick to their opinions even if everyone except themselves is deliberately making a wrong judgment, because then they are "out of touch". out-of-touch" opinions will not be known to others, and they will not be ridiculed or ostracized. [3]

From Influences

Group Factors

Group Consistency: Individuals face a great deal of pressure to conform when confronted with a consistent group. When there is not complete agreement in a group, the number of followers drops significantly. Studies have shown that as soon as one person comes forward to voice dissent, there is an immediate and significant drop in the number of followers. In contrast, dissent from members outside the group causes less impact than disagreement from members within the group. [3]

Group size: within a certain range, people's submissiveness increases as the group size increases. A smaller group can trigger a powerful follower effect. It has been found that a group of 3-5 people can trigger more follower behavior than a group of 1-2 people, whereas when the group size exceeds 5 people, the follower behavior decreases as the number of people increases[5]. In Milgram's 1969 experiment, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, or 15 people were allowed to look up on the sidewalk,[6] and as the crowd size rose from 1 to 5, the rate of passers-by who did the same looked up steadily increased until it approached 80%, and the rate slowly declined when the size rose from 5 to 10, followed by a rise among 10 to 15 people, although not as much as before.

Milgram experiment

Group cohesion: the higher the group cohesion, the stronger the individual's attachment to the group, and the easier it is to develop a strong sense of identity with the group to which one belongs. For example, in a racial group people will feel a **** the same "belonging to the group of the herd pressure", [4] this pressure prompts people in the behavior, speech, dress as much as possible to the group closer, otherwise it will be ridiculed.

Individual's status in the group: the higher the individual's status and identity in the group, the more authoritative, the less likely to succumb to group pressure. And conversely, the lower the status, the easier it is for the person in authority to shed his or her own opinion when it is contrary to his or her own, and thus subordination occurs. Similarly, the higher the status of an individual in a group and the more valuable his/her status is, the stronger the influence of his/her opinion is, and naturally the more likely he/she is to trigger herd behavior. [3]

Whether or not to face group pressure: It was mentioned earlier that in the Asch experiment, if the answers were given anonymously, then the subjects had a higher chance of sticking to their judgment. Indeed, in this case, even if the opinion does not agree with the majority, there is no need to worry about being ostracized by the group, and the subjects can then be themselves openly, and the occurrence of herd behavior will be reduced. [4]

Individual Factors

Gender: It is often thought that men are less likely to follow the crowd than women. But the truth is actually not that simple. Research shows that women tend to exhibit more submissive behavior in issues that are more masculine or in which men are better at (e.g., cars, soccer, etc.), while men are more likely to show submissive behavior in topics that are feminine (e.g., makeup, literature). In neutral issues, where both men and women are more knowledgeable, gender has little effect on follower behavior. [3]

Age: Age-wise, children and adolescents are more likely to be submissive than adults, which is understandable; after all, the former have not yet developed their own unique values and are easily influenced by outside voices. [1]

Personality traits: an individual's ability, self-confidence, self-esteem, and need for social approval are all closely related to herd behavior. Generally speaking, the stronger a person's ability, the higher his self-confidence, the lower his self-esteem, the lower his need for social approval and recognition, and the better his ability to deal with anxiety, the less likely he is to develop herd behavior[4]. That's exactly what happened to the 25% of adherents in the Ash experiment.

Knowledge experience: the simpler the task, the more people know about it, the more information they have, the clearer their judgment, the less likely they are to follow the crowd, and conversely, the more likely they are to follow the crowd, which is also influenced by information pressure. [4]

Cultural Factors

According to Smith's experiment, the average incidence of herd behavior is 31%, while the degree of subordination of Belgian students is far below the average, only 14%, on the contrary, among Indian teachers in Fiji, the figure reaches a staggering 58%, and this great contrast confirms one thing, that is, the herd behavior has a very high degree of intercultural Differences. Where individualism is prevalent, such as in North America and northeastern Europe, where individual opinions and values are highly valued, and where conformity is negative, the incidence of conformity is only 25%, whereas where collectivism is paramount or where there is a high degree of interdependence between people, such as in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and South America, a person should show absolute loyalty to the collective to which they belong, so that "minority conformity" is the norm. In Africa, Asia, Oceania, and South America, where a person should show absolute loyalty to the collective to which he or she belongs, the concept of "majority rule" is popular, and conformity is not only not stigmatized, but even respected and understood, so that conformity in these places rises to an average of 37%. [7] There is no superiority or inferiority between collectivism and individualism, and the difference between them provides a larger context in which to understand herd behavior.

Psychological Benefits and Drawbacks

Positive herd mentality can undoubtedly bring us many benefits. If a collective of people are on the same front, we all think together, to make one effort, from the overall situation, unity, forge ahead, it will naturally be "all the firewood flame high", we **** the same goal will soon be achieved. Positive crowd behavior can play a role in encouraging, motivating, motivating each other emotionally, conducive to the establishment of a good social atmosphere. Some unpopular novelty will be unanimously resisted, for example, if there is a person in the public **** occasion in the shouting, it will be looked at, and he will probably be interested in recognizing the adverse effects of such behavior, and then stop. The public hates transgressors and may even mobilize against them, thus maintaining social order well. [2]

But at the same time, the crowd is also a double-edged sword, "the water can carry the boat can also overturn the boat", some times, the crowd psychology also has its many negative effects. For example:

Decision-making in the herd mentality

In the collective decision-making in the general existence of the herd mentality. There are three main reasons for this, the first is that the participants in decision making are not willing to be new and different, to be the one who is different, so as not to be isolated by others. Second, the participants do not understand the problem, the lack of subjective views in mind. The third is that participants see most people's opinions are similar, although they have different views, but they are too shy to express them, but also worried that people do not accept them, so they just follow the crowd. [2] Whatever the reason, the result is the same, that is, no one will come forward to defend the truth or insist on their own views in the collective decision-making, if a few people have premeditatedly jumped the gun to speak first and take the lead, then it is likely that the majority of the people will unthinkingly express their approval, which will result in the formation of dangerous decision-making to the detriment of the collective interests.

Blind conformity leads to loss of individual thinking

Negative conformity inhibits individual thinking and leads to blind conformity. Fulton, a physicist, used a new measurement method to measure the thermal conductivity of solid helium, and the final result was 500 times the value of the traditional theory. Fulton felt that the result was too outrageous, and once it was announced, it would attract skepticism, and people would think that he was grandstanding, so he didn't announce the figure. But it turned out that Fulton's result was in fact correct, he missed the opportunity to shock the scientific community because of a momentary hesitation and yielding to traditional ideas, which made Fulton regret it. [2]

Sheeple effect within the field of stock investment

In the stock market, many investors are happy to follow the trend of frequent operations in the short term, and there are not a few examples of blood money.

Shanghai Stock Exchange released the "China Securities Investor Behavior Study" [8] shows that Chinese securities investor behavior has three significant features, namely, short-term operations, herd behavior and disposition effect. And the survey results show that even in the market rose 130% in 2006 A-share bull market, there are still about 30% of investors are losing money, which is an important reason for blindly following the crowd, short-term speculation.

The "herd effect" or herd behavior of investors is a typical phenomenon in behavioral finance. Herd behavior allows investors to give up their own independent thinking, will inevitably become an unconscious investment behavior, which contains a great risk. The herd behavior of investors, not only easy to lead to stock market bubbles, so that the market operating efficiency is impaired; but also increase the systematic risk, exacerbating the volatility of the stock market. In the "herd effect" role, investors in the stock market up when the enthusiasm is high, down when the panic, so that the market speculative atmosphere aggravated. [8]

Investment psychology tells us that the process of securities investment can be seen as a dynamic psychological equilibrium process. But in the securities market under the role of the "herd effect", often produce systematic cognitive bias, emotional bias, and lead to investment decision-making bias. Investment decision-making bias will make asset prices deviate from their intrinsic value, resulting in asset pricing bias. [8]

Asset pricing bias tends to produce an anchoring effect, which in turn affects the investor's judgment of the value of the asset, and further produces cognitive bias and emotional bias, which forms a feedback mechanism. In this "feedback loop", the initial "herd effect" allows the formation of bias; and strengthen the "herd effect", so that the bias can be spread and amplified. [8]

Psychological Countermeasures

Breaking the authority stereotype

To create a positive, scientific and open public opinion atmosphere. The existence of authority is an extremely normal phenomenon, but excessive respect for authority and blindly follow it will only bring bad consequences. Life of people to the authority of the opinion of the one-dimensional obedience can easily lead to major errors in decision-making. Therefore, the superstition and blind obedience to authority should be eliminated, and the views of the authority should not be regarded as a guideline, but should be enlarged and valued the contribution and wisdom of ordinary people, so that a hundred flowers will naturally blossom. [2]

Creating free space

To cultivate people's ability to think independently and innovate on their own, rather than to follow the crowd. In the decision-making or deliberation of the issue of more exchanges and sharing sessions, debates, etc., to encourage different voices, with a variety of forms to encourage people to analyze the problem from multiple perspectives, express their own views, so that people's independent thinking will gradually enhance, so that they do not blindly follow the subject, have a subjective, rationalized.