Misplaced Pages

#863136

91-519: Herd behavior is the behavior of individuals in a group acting collectively without centralized direction. Herd behavior occurs in animals in herds , packs , bird flocks , fish schools and so on, as well as in humans. Voting , demonstrations , riots , general strikes , sporting events, religious gatherings, everyday decision-making, judgement and opinion-forming, are all forms of human-based herd behavior. Raafat, Chater and Frith proposed an integrated approach to herding, describing two key issues,

182-437: A ( 1 − q ) b + ( 1 − p ) ( 1 − q ) a q b {\displaystyle P(A|{\text{Previous}},{\text{Personal signal}})={\frac {pq^{a}(1-q)^{b}}{pq^{a}(1-q)^{b}+(1-p)(1-q)^{a}q^{b}}}} Where a is the number of accepts in the previous set plus the agent's own signal, and b is the number of rejects. Thus, ⁠

273-483: A + b = n {\displaystyle a+b=n} ⁠ . The decision is based on how the value on the right hand side of the equation compares with p . The original model makes several assumptions about human behavior and the world in which humans act, some of which are relaxed in later versions or in alternate definitions of similar problems, such as the diffusion of innovations . A literature exists that examines how individuals or firms might respond to

364-501: A reputational cascade , late responders sometimes go along with the decisions of early responders, not just because the late responders think the early responders are right, but also because they perceive their reputation will be damaged if they dissent from the early responders. Information cascades have become one of the topics of behavioral economics , as they are often seen in financial markets where they can feed speculation and create cumulative and excessive price moves , either for

455-468: A "group mind" or "mob behavior" was put forward by the French social psychologists Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon . Sheeple ( / ˈ ʃ iː p əl / ; a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people") is a derogatory term that highlights the passive herd behavior of people easily controlled by a governing power or market fads which likens them to sheep , a herd animal that is "easily" led about. The term

546-580: A "tough test" which is biased against the seller can instigate a cascade all by itself). Bose et al. have examined how prices set by a monopolist might evolve in the presence of potential cascade behavior where the monopolist and consumers are unsure of a products quality. Information cascades occur in situations where seeing many people make the same choice provides evidence that outweighs one's own judgment. That is, one thinks: "It's more likely that I'm wrong than that all those other people are wrong. Therefore, I will do as they do." In what has been termed

637-409: A Pepsi-drinker is less likely to purchase Coca-Cola, even if it is cheaper and more convenient. This is due to the preference of the consumer, and no matter how hard the opposing company tries they will not be able to force the customer to change their mind. Product placement in the modern era has little influence on consumer behavior, due to the availability of goods online. If a customer can purchase

728-403: A ball must be drawn during each run is determined randomly and with equal probabilities (from the throw of a dice). The contents of the chosen urn are emptied into a neutral container. The participants are then asked in random order to draw a marble from this container. This entire process may be termed a "run", and a number of such runs are performed. Each time a participant picks up a marble, he

819-493: A behavior actually occurs, antecedents focus on the stimuli that influence the behavior that is about to happen. After the behavior occurs, consequences fall into place. Consequences consist of rewards or punishments. Social behavior is behavior among two or more organisms within the same species, and encompasses any behavior in which one member affects the other. This is due to an interaction among those members. Social behavior can be seen as similar to an exchange of goods, with

910-425: A binary one. Second, outside factors can influence this decision, such as the individual observing others' choices and the apparent outcomes. The two-step process of an informational cascade can be broken down into five basic components: Social perspectives of cascades, which suggest that agents may act irrationally (e.g., against what they think is optimal) when social pressures are great, exist as complements to

1001-424: A biological context, one common interpretation based on a meta-analysis of scientific literature states that "behavior is the internally coordinated responses (actions or inactions) of whole living organisms (individuals or groups) to internal or external stimuli". A broader definition of behavior, applicable to plants and other organisms, is similar to the concept of phenotypic plasticity . It describes behavior as

SECTION 10

#1732875760864

1092-467: A consumer is hungry, then this physical feeling of hunger will influence them so that they go and purchase a sandwich to satisfy the hunger. Lars Perner presents a model that outlines the decision-making process involved in consumer behaviour. The process initiates with the identification of a problem, wherein the consumer acknowledges an unsatisfied need or desire. Subsequently, the consumer proceeds to seek information, whereas for low-involvement products,

1183-403: A focus on behavior under natural conditions, and viewing behavior as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviorism is a term that also describes the scientific and objective study of animal behavior, usually referring to measured responses to stimuli or trained behavioral responses in a laboratory context, without a particular emphasis on evolutionary adaptivity. Consumer behavior involves

1274-705: A front seat when it comes to social marketing , paving the way for campaigns such as Earth Day , and the variety of anti-smoking and anti-obesity campaigns seen in every country. Within cultures and communities, marketers must aim to influence opinion leaders who in turn influence each other, as it is the herd mentality of any group of people that ensures a social campaign's success. A campaign run by Som la Pera in Spain to combat teenage obesity found that campaigns run in schools are more effective due to influence of teachers and peers, and students' high visibility, and their interaction with one another. Opinion leaders in schools created

1365-412: A good from the comfort of their home instead of purchasing in-store, then the placement of products is not going to influence their purchase decision. In management, behaviors are associated with desired or undesired focuses. Managers generally note what the desired outcome is, but behavioral patterns can take over. These patterns are the reference to how often the desired behavior actually occurs. Before

1456-432: A legal concern and laws have been enacted to neutralize them. Ward Farnsworth , a law professor, analyzed the legal aspects of informational cascades and gave several examples in his book The Legal Analyst : in many military courts , the officers voting to decide a case vote in reverse rank order (the officer of the lowest rank votes first), and he suggested it may be done so the lower-ranked officers would not be tempted by

1547-509: A line behind an urn which had balls of different colors. Sequentially, participants would pick a ball out of the urn, looks at it, and then places it back into the urn. The agent then voices their opinion of which color of balls (red or blue) there is a majority of in the urn for the rest of the participants to hear. Participants get a monetary reward if they guess correctly, forcing the concept of rationality. Other examples include The negative effects of informational cascades sometimes become

1638-439: A low signal. Recalling that, if the value, V , of accepting is equal to the value of rejecting, then an agent will accept if he believes p > 0.5, and reject otherwise. Because this agent started out with the assumption that both accepting and rejecting are equally viable options ( p = 0.5), the observation of an H signal will allow him to conclude that accepting is the rational choice. The second agent then considers both

1729-449: A market context can become informed through the price in such a way that private information is aggregated correctly and efficiently. Subsequent work has shown that markets may systematically overweight public information; it has also studied the role of strategic trading as an obstacle to efficient information aggregation. Herd behavior is often a useful tool in marketing and, if used properly, can lead to increases in sales and changes to

1820-495: A marketing tool and stand for Price, Promotion, Product, and Placement. Due to the significant impact of business-to-consumer marketing on consumer behavior, the four elements of the marketing mix, known as the 4 P's (product, price, place, and promotion), exert a notable influence on consumer behavior. The price of a good or service is largely determined by the market, as businesses will set their prices to be similar to that of other businesses so as to remain competitive whilst making

1911-557: A mere sum of separate individuals are made into a 'society' ". Other social scientists explored behaviors related to herding, such as Sigmund Freud (crowd psychology), Carl Jung (collective unconscious), Everett Dean Martin (Behavior of Crowds) and Gustave Le Bon (the popular mind). Swarm theory observed in non-human societies is a related concept and is being explored as it occurs in human society. Scottish journalist Charles Mackay identifies multiple facets of herd behaviour in his 1841 work, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and

SECTION 20

#1732875760864

2002-401: A part of this cascade-driven reorganization process, information cascades can also create assortative social networks , where people tend to be connected to others who are similar in some characteristic. Tweet cascades increase in the similarity between connected users, as users lose ties to more dissimilar users and add new ties to similar users. Information cascades created by news coverage in

2093-487: A person's beliefs and actions regarding their health and well-being . Health behaviors are direct factors in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Health behaviors are influenced by the social, cultural, and physical environments in which we live. They are shaped by individual choices and external constraints. Positive behaviors help promote health and prevent disease, while the opposite is true for risk behaviors. Health behaviors are early indicators of population health. Because of

2184-612: A place to eat. They see that restaurant A has customers while B is empty, and choose A on the assumption that having customers makes it the better choice. Because other passersby do the same thing into the evening, restaurant A does more business that night than B. This phenomenon is also referred as an information cascade . Crowds that gather on behalf of a grievance can involve herding behavior that turns violent, particularly when confronted by an opposing ethnic or racial group. The Los Angeles riots of 1992 , New York Draft Riots and Tulsa Race Riot are notorious in U.S. history. The idea of

2275-523: A platform for opinion leaders to take the stage and influence purchase decisions, and recommendations from peers and evidence of positive online experience all serve to help consumers make purchasing decisions. Gunawan and Huarng's 2015 study concluded that social influence is essential in framing attitudes towards brands, which in turn leads to purchase intention. Influencers form norms which their peers are found to follow, and targeting extroverted personalities increases chances of purchase even further. This

2366-410: A profit. When market prices for a product are high, it will cause consumers to purchase less and use purchased goods for longer periods of time, meaning they are purchasing the product less often. Alternatively, when market prices for a product are low, consumers are more likely to purchase more of the product, and more often. The way that promotion influences consumer behavior has changed over time. In

2457-457: A response to an event or environment change during the course of the lifetime of an individual, differing from other physiological or biochemical changes that occur more rapidly, and excluding changes that are a result of development ( ontogeny ). Behaviors can be either innate or learned from the environment. Behaviour can be regarded as any action of an organism that changes its relationship to its environment. Behavior provides outputs from

2548-419: A room with two equal and equidistant exits, a majority will favor one exit while the minority will favor the other. Possible mechanisms for this behavior include Hamilton 's selfish herd theory , neighbor copying, or the byproduct of communication by social animals or runaway positive feedback. Characteristics of escape panic include: The philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were among

2639-538: A speculative attack and it will tend to cause moderate inflation in the short term. When consumers realize that the inflation of needed commodities is increasing, they will begin to stockpile and hoard goods, which will accelerate the rate of inflation even faster. This will ultimately crash the currency and likely lead to civil unrest . Large stock market trends often begin and end with periods of frenzied buying (bubbles) or selling (crashes). Many observers cite these episodes as clear examples of herding behavior that

2730-559: A variety of directions to examine its robustness and better understand its implications. Information cascades occur when external information obtained from previous participants in an event overrides one's own private signal, irrespective of the correctness of the former over the latter. The experiment conducted by Anderson is a useful example of this process. The experiment consisted of two urns labeled A and B. Urn A contains two balls labeled "a" and one labeled "b". Urn B contains one ball labeled "a" and two labeled "b". The urn from which

2821-515: Is pluralia tantum , which means it does not have a singular form. While its origins are unclear, the word was used by W. R. Anderson in his column Round About Radio , published in London 1945, where he wrote: The simple truth is that you can get away with anything, in government. That covers almost all the evils of the time. Once in, nobody, apparently, can turn you out. The People, as ever (I spell it "Sheeple"), will stand anything. Another early use

Herd behavior - Misplaced Pages Continue

2912-590: Is because the stronger personalities tend to be more engaged on consumer platforms and thus spread word of mouth information more efficiently. Many brands have begun to realise the importance of brand ambassadors and influencers, and it is being shown more clearly that herd behaviour can be used to drive sales and profits exponentially in favour of any brand through examination of these instances. Marketing can easily transcend beyond commercial roots, in that it can be used to encourage action to do with health, environmentalism and general society. Herd mentality often takes

3003-618: Is clear that opinion leaders and their influence achieve huge reach among their reference groups and thus can be used as the loudest voices to encourage others in any collective direction. a. See for example the Misplaced Pages article on his book Irrational Exuberance . 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 well as

3094-439: Is irrational and driven by emotion—greed in the bubbles, fear in the crashes. Individual investors join the crowd of others in a rush to get in or out of the market. Some followers of the technical analysis school of investing see the herding behavior of investors as an example of extreme market sentiment . The academic study of behavioral finance has identified herding in the collective irrationality of investors, particularly

3185-458: Is most effective if these later consumers are able to observe the adoption decisions, but not how satisfied the early customers actually were with the choice. This is consistent with the idea that cascades arise naturally when people can see what others do but not what they know. An example is Hollywood movies. If test screenings suggest a big-budget movie might be a flop, studios often decide to spend more on initial marketing rather than less, with

3276-405: Is often a spike in follow and unfollow activity following an information cascade, such as the sharing of a viral tweet. As the tweet-sharing cascade passes through the network, users adjust their social ties, particularly those connected to the original author of the viral tweet: the author of a viral tweet will see both a sudden loss in previous followers and a sudden increase in new followers. As

3367-425: Is seen as an indication of better quality, and consumers will use the opinions of others posted on these platforms as a powerful compass to guide them towards products and brands that align with their preconceptions and the decisions of others in their peer groups . Taking into account differences in needs and their position in the socialization process, Lessig & Park examined groups of students and housewives and

3458-747: Is the 2007 uranium bubble , which started with flooding of the Cigar Lake Mine in Saskatchewan , during the year 2006. There are two strands of work in economic theory that consider why herding occurs and provide frameworks for examining its causes and consequences. The first of these strands is that on herd behavior in a non-market context. The seminal references are Banerjee (1992) and Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer and Welch (1992), both of which showed that herd behavior may result from private information not publicly shared. More specifically, both of these papers showed that individuals, acting sequentially on

3549-1412: Is the probability that an agent gets an L signal when the correct action is reject. If these likelihoods are represented by q , then q > 0.5. This is summarized in the table below. The first agent determines whether or not to accept solely based on his own signal. As the model assumes that all agents act rationally, the action (accept or reject) the agent feels is more likely is the action he will choose to take. This decision can be explained using Bayes' rule : P ( A | H ) = P ( A ) P ( H | A ) P ( H ) = P ( A ) P ( H | A ) P ( A ) P ( H | A ) + P ( R ) P ( H | R ) = p q p q + ( 1 − p ) ( 1 − q ) > p {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}P\left(A|H\right)&={\frac {P\left(A\right)P\left(H|A\right)}{P\left(H\right)}}\\&={\frac {P\left(A\right)P\left(H|A\right)}{P\left(A\right)P\left(H|A\right)+P\left(R\right)P\left(H|R\right)}}\\&={\frac {pq}{pq+\left(1-p\right)\left(1-q\right)}}\\&>p\end{aligned}}} If

3640-524: Is through consumer willingness to pay, and consumer preferences. This means that even if a company were to have a long history of products in the market, consumers will still pick a cheaper product over the company in question's product if it means they will pay less for something that is very similar. This is due to consumer willingness to pay, or their willingness to part with the money they have earned. The product also influences consumer behavior through customer preferences. For example, take Pepsi vs Coca-Cola,

3731-435: Is to decide which urn it belongs to. His decision is then announced for the benefit of the remaining participants in the room. Thus, the (n+1)th participant has information about the decisions made by all the n participants preceding him, and also his private signal which is the label on the ball that he draws during his turn. The experimenters observed that an information cascade was observed in 41 of 56 such runs. This means, in

Herd behavior - Misplaced Pages Continue

3822-443: Is used to describe those who voluntarily acquiesce to a suggestion without any significant critical analysis or research, in large part due to the majority of a population having a similar mindset. Word Spy defines it as "people who are meek, easily persuaded , and tend to follow the crowd (sheep + people)". Merriam-Webster defines the term as "people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced: people likened to sheep". The word

3913-408: The intention with self-efficacy from individual's mastery in problem solving and task completion is important to bring about a positive change. Self efficacy is often cemented through standard persuasive techniques. Information cascade An information cascade is generally accepted as a two-step process. For a cascade to begin an individual must encounter a scenario with a decision, typically

4004-410: The social influence model of belief spread argues that people have some notion of the private beliefs of those in their network. The social influence model, then, relaxes the assumption of information cascades that people are acting only on observable actions taken by others. In addition, the social influence model focuses on embedding people within a social network, as opposed to a queue. Finally,

4095-451: The social influence on shopper behavior shows that shoppers are influenced by direct interactions with companions, and as a group size grows, herd behaviour becomes more apparent. Discussions that create excitement and interest have greater impact on touch frequency and purchase likelihood grows with greater involvement caused by a large group. Shoppers in this Midwestern American shopping outlet were monitored and their purchases noted, and it

4186-615: The structure of society . Whilst it has been shown that financial incentives cause action in large numbers of people, herd mentality often wins out in a case of "Keeping up with the Joneses". Communications technologies have contributed to the proliferation to consumer choice and "the power of crowds", Consumers increasingly have more access to opinions and information from both opinion leaders and formers on platforms that have largely user-generated content , and thus have more tools with which to complete any decision-making process. Popularity

4277-626: The Herd in Peace and War (1914). In The Theory of the Leisure Class , Thorstein Veblen explained economic behavior in terms of social influences such as "emulation", where some members of a group mimic other members of higher status. In "The Metropolis and Mental Life" (1903), early sociologist George Simmel referred to the "impulse to sociability in man", and sought to describe "the forms of association by which

4368-455: The Madness of Crowds . "Benign" herding behaviors may occur frequently in everyday decisions based on learning from the information of others, as when a person on the street decides which of two restaurants to dine in. Suppose that both look appealing, but both are empty because it is early evening; so at random, this person chooses restaurant A. Soon a couple walks down the same street in search of

4459-456: The agent receives an H signal, then the likelihood of accepting is obtained by calculating P [ A | H ] {\displaystyle P[A|H]} . The equation says that, by virtue of the fact that q > 0.5, the first agent, acting only on his private signal, will always increase his estimate of p with an H signal. Similarly, it can be shown that an agent will always decrease his expectation of p when he receives

4550-415: The aim of making as much money as possible on the opening weekend, before word gets around that it's a turkey. Information cascades are usually considered by economists: Dotey et al. state that information flows in the form of cascades on the social network . According to the authors, analysis of virality of information cascades on a social network may lead to many useful applications like determining

4641-438: The basis of private information and public knowledge about the behavior of others, may end up choosing the socially undesirable option. A large subsequent literature has examined the causes and consequences of such "herds" and information cascades. The second strands concerns information aggregation in market contexts. A very early reference is the classic paper by Grossman and Stiglitz (1976) that showed that uninformed traders in

SECTION 50

#1732875760864

4732-710: The cascade to vote with the more senior officers, who are believed to have more accurate judgement; another example is that countries such as Israel and France have laws that prohibit polling days or weeks before elections to prevent the effect of informational cascade that may influence the election results. One informational cascade study compared thought processes between Greek and German organic farmers, suggesting discrepancies based upon cultural and socioeconomic differences. Even further, cascades have been extrapolated to ideas such as financial volatility and monetary policy. In 2004 Helmut Wagner and Wolfram Berger suggested cascades as an analytical vehicle to examine changes to

4823-587: The choice by eliminating the less appealing products until there is one left. After this has been identified, the consumer will purchase the product. Finally, the consumer will evaluate the purchase decision, and the purchased product, bringing in factors such as value for money, quality of goods, and purchase experience. However, this logical process does not always happen this way, people are emotional and irrational creatures. People make decisions with emotion and then justify them with logic according to Robert Cialdini Ph.D. Psychology. The Marketing mix (4 P's) are

4914-513: The concept of information cascades. More often the problem is that the concept of an information cascade is confused with ideas that do not match the two key conditions of the process, such as social proof , information diffusion , and social influence . Indeed, the term information cascade has even been used to refer to such processes. This section provides some basic examples of information cascades, as originally described by Bikchandani et al. (1992). The basic model has since been developed in

5005-466: The correct decision is to accept, individuals will be more likely to see an H , and conversely, when the correct decision is to reject, individuals are more likely to see an L signal. This is essentially a conditional probability – the probability of H when the correct action is to accept, or P [ H | A ] {\displaystyle P[H|A]} . Similarly P [ L | R ] {\displaystyle P[L|R]}

5096-429: The encouragement to save energy when they were told that 77% of their neighbours were using fans instead of air conditioning, proving that communities are more likely to engage in a behaviour if they think that everyone else is already taking part. Herd behaviours shown in the two examples exemplify that it can be a powerful tool in social marketing, and if harnessed correctly, has the potential to achieve great change. It

5187-410: The existence of informational cascades when they have products to sell but where buyers are unsure of the quality of those products. Curtis Taylor (1999) shows that when selling a house the seller might wish to start with high prices, as failure to sell with low prices is indicative of low quality and might start a cascade on not buying, while failure to sell with high prices could be construed as meaning

5278-407: The expectation that when one gives, one will receive the same. This behavior can be affected by both the qualities of the individual and the environmental (situational) factors. Therefore, social behavior arises as a result of an interaction between the two—the organism and its environment. This means that, in regards to humans, social behavior can be determined by both the individual characteristics of

5369-426: The fact that barriers to action are easily overcome. The theory of planned behavior suggests using persuasive messages for tackling behavioral beliefs to increase the readiness to perform a behavior, called intentions . The theory of planned behavior advocates the need to tackle normative beliefs and control beliefs in any attempt to change behavior. Challenging the normative beliefs is not enough but to follow through

5460-419: The financial market as it became more globalized. Wagner and Berger noticed structural changes to the framework of understanding financial markets due to globalization; giving rise to volatility in capital flow and spawning uncertainty which affected central banks. Additionally, information cascades are useful in understanding the origins of terrorist tactics. When the attack by Black September occurred in 1972 it

5551-445: The first agent's decision and his own signal, again in a rational fashion. In general, the n th agent considers the decisions of the previous n -1 agents, and his own signal. He makes a decision based on Bayesian reasoning to determine the most rational choice. P ( A | Previous , Personal signal ) = p q a ( 1 − q ) b p q

SECTION 60

#1732875760864

5642-432: The first to criticize what they referred to as "the crowd" (Kierkegaard) and "herd morality" and the "herd instinct" (Nietzsche) in human society. Modern psychological and economic research has identified herd behavior in humans to explain the phenomenon of large numbers of people acting in the same way at the same time. The British surgeon Wilfred Trotter popularized the "herd behavior" phrase in his book, Instincts of

5733-410: The house is just over-priced, and prices can then be reduced to get a sale. Daniel Sgroi (2002) shows that firms might use "guinea pigs" who are given the opportunity to buy early to kick-start an informational cascade through their early and public purchasing decisions, and work by David Gill and Daniel Sgroi (2008) show that early public tests might have a similar effect (and in particular that passing

5824-478: The inanimate physical environment. It is the computed response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious , overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary . Taking a behavior informatics perspective, a behavior consists of actor, operation, interactions, and their properties. This can be represented as a behavior vector . Although disagreement exists as to how to precisely define behavior in

5915-407: The influence that these reference groups have on one another. By way of herd mentality, students tended to encourage each other towards beer, hamburger and cigarettes, whilst housewives tended to encourage each other towards furniture and detergent. Whilst this particular study was done in 1977, one cannot discount its findings in today's society. A study done by Burke, Leykin, Li and Zhang in 2014 on

6006-505: The late 1980s and early 1990s by conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Bill Cooper on his radio program The Hour of the Time which was broadcast internationally via shortwave radio stations. The program gained a small, yet dedicated following, inspiring many individuals who would later broadcast their own radio programs critical of the United States government. This then led to its regular use on

6097-478: The logo and branding for the campaign, built content for social media and led in-school presentations to engage audience interaction. It was thus concluded that the success of the campaign was rooted in the fact that its means of communication was the audience itself, giving the target audience a sense of ownership and empowerment. As mentioned previously, students exert a high level of influence over one another, and by encouraging stronger personalities to lead opinions,

6188-426: The mechanisms of transmission of thoughts or behavior between individuals and the patterns of connections between them. They suggested that bringing together diverse theoretical approaches of herding behavior illuminates the applicability of the concept to many domains, ranging from cognitive neuroscience to economics. A group of animals fleeing from a predator shows the nature of herd behavior, for example in 1971, in

6279-407: The media may also foster political polarization by sorting social networks along political lines : Twitter users who follow and share more polarized news coverage tend to lose social ties to users of the opposite ideology. In addition to the examples above, Information Cascades have been shown to exist in several empirical studies. Perhaps the best example, given above, is. Participants stood in

6370-466: The most influential individuals within a network. This information can be used for maximizing market effectiveness or influencing public opinion . Various structural and temporal features of a network affect cascade virality. Additionally, these models are widely exploited in the problem of Rumor spread in social network to investigate it and reduce its influence in online social networks. In contrast to work on information cascades in social networks,

6461-400: The name of security, we've allowed fingernail clippers , eyeglass screwdrivers, and toy soldiers to be taken from us prior to boarding a plane." Currency crises tend to display herding behavior when foreign and domestic investors convert a government's currency into physical assets (like gold) or foreign currencies when they realize the government is unable to repay its debts. This is called

6552-406: The needs of each individual in an ethical and respected manner. Health belief model encourages increasing individuals' perceived susceptibility to negative health outcomes and making individuals aware of the severity of such negative health behavior outcomes. E.g. through health promotion messages. In addition, the health belief model suggests the need to focus on the benefits of health behaviors and

6643-712: The oft-cited article "Geometry for the Selfish Herd", evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton asserted that each individual group member reduces the danger to itself by moving as close as possible to the center of the fleeing group. Thus the herd appears as a unit in moving together, but its function emerges from the uncoordinated behavior of self-serving individuals. Asymmetric aggregation of animals under panic conditions has been observed in many species, including humans, mice, and ants. Theoretical models have demonstrated symmetry-breaking similar to observations in empirical studies. For example, when panicked individuals are confined to

6734-606: The onset of chronic disease and extending active lifespan. Smoking, alcohol consumption, diet, gaps in primary care services and low screening uptake are all significant determinants of poor health, and changing such behaviors should lead to improved health. For example, in US, Healthy People 2000, United States Department of Health and Human Services , lists increased physical activity, changes in nutrition and reductions in tobacco, alcohol and drug use as important for health promotion and disease prevention. Any interventions done are matched with

6825-438: The organism to the environment. The endocrine system and the nervous system likely influence human behavior. Complexity in the behavior of an organism may be correlated to the complexity of its nervous system. Generally, organisms with more complex nervous systems have a greater capacity to learn new responses and thus adjust their behavior. Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal behavior, usually with

6916-435: The organizers of the campaign were able to secure the attention of other students who identified with the reference group. Herd behaviour not only applies to students in schools where they are highly visible, but also amongst communities where perceived action plays a strong role. Between 2003 and 2004, California State University carried out a study to measure household conservation of energy , and motivations for doing so. It

7007-619: The past, large promotional campaigns and heavy advertising would convert into sales for a business, but nowadays businesses can have success on products with little or no advertising. This is due to the Internet and in particular social media. They rely on word of mouth from consumers using social media, and as products trend online, so sales increase as products effectively promote themselves. Thus, promotion by businesses does not necessarily result in consumer behavior trending towards purchasing products. The way that product influences consumer behavior

7098-493: The person, and the situation they are in. Behavior informatics also called behavior computing , explores behavior intelligence and behavior insights from the informatics and computing perspectives. Different from applied behavior analysis from the psychological perspective, BI builds computational theories, systems and tools to qualitatively and quantitatively model, represent, analyze, and manage behaviors of individuals, groups and/or organizations. Health behavior refers to

7189-475: The processes consumers go through, and reactions they have towards products or services. It has to do with consumption, and the processes consumers go through around purchasing and consuming goods and services. Consumers recognize needs or wants, and go through a process to satisfy these needs. Consumer behavior is the process they go through as customers, which includes types of products purchased, amount spent, frequency of purchases and what influences them to make

7280-557: The purchase decision or not. Circumstances that influence consumer behaviour are varied, with contributions from both internal and external factors. Internal factors include attitudes, needs, motives, preferences and perceptual processes, whilst external factors include marketing activities, social and economic factors, and cultural aspects. Doctor Lars Perner of the University of Southern California claims that there are also physical factors that influence consumer behavior, for example, if

7371-485: The radio program Coast to Coast AM by Art Bell throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. These combined factors significantly increased the popularity of the word and led to its widespread use. The term can also be used for those who seem inordinately tolerant, or welcoming, of widespread policies. In a column entitled "A Nation of Sheeple", columnist Walter E. Williams writes, "Americans sheepishly accepted all sorts of Transportation Security Administration nonsense. In

7462-450: The runs where the cascade occurred, at least one participant gave precedence to earlier decisions over his own private signal. It is possible for such an occurrence to produce the wrong result. This phenomenon is known as "Reverse Cascade". A person's signal telling them to accept is denoted as H (a high signal, where high signifies he should accept), and a signal telling them not to accept is L (a low signal). The model assumes that when

7553-413: The search tends to rely on internal resources, retrieving alternatives from memory. Conversely, for high-involvement products, the search is typically more extensive, involving activities like reviewing reports, reading reviews, or seeking recommendations from friends. The consumer will then evaluate his or her alternatives, comparing price, and quality, doing trade-offs between products, and narrowing down

7644-483: The social influence model relaxes the assumption of the information cascade model that people will either complete an action or not by allowing for a continuous scale of the "strength" of an agents belief that an action should be completed. Information cascades can also restructure the social networks that they pass through. For example, while there is a constant low level of churn in social ties on Twitter —in any given month, about 9% of all social connections change—there

7735-629: The time lag that often occurs between certain behaviors and the development of disease, these indicators may foreshadow the future burdens and benefits of health-risk and health-promoting behaviors. A variety of studies have examined the relationship between health behaviors and health outcomes (e.g., Blaxter 1990) and have demonstrated their role in both morbidity and mortality. These studies have identified seven features of lifestyle which were associated with lower morbidity and higher subsequent long-term survival (Belloc and Breslow 1972): Health behaviors impact upon individuals' quality of life, by delaying

7826-448: The whole market ( market bubble ) or a specific asset, like a stock that becomes overly popular among investors. Marketers also use the idea of cascades to attempt to get a buying cascade started for a new product. If they can induce an initial set of people to adopt the new product, then those who make purchasing decisions later on may also adopt the product even if it is no better than, or perhaps even worse than, competing products. This

7917-448: The work of Nobel laureates Vernon L. Smith , Amos Tversky , Daniel Kahneman , and Robert Shiller . Hey and Morone (2004) analyzed a model of herd behavior in a market context. Some empirical works on methods for detecting and measuring the extent of herding include Christie and Huang (1995) and Chang, Cheng and Khorana (2000). These results refer to a market with a well-defined fundamental value. A notable incident of possible herding

8008-411: Was found that factors like saving the environment, saving money or social responsibility did not have as great an impact on each household as the perceived behaviour of their neighbours did. Although the financial incentives of saving money, closely followed by moral incentives of protecting the environment, are often thought of as being a community's greatest guiding compass, more households responded to

8099-469: Was found up to a point, potential customers preferred to be in stores which had moderate levels of traffic. The other people in the store not only served as company, but also provided an inference point on which potential customers could model their behavior and make purchase decisions , as with any reference group or community. Social media can also be a powerful tool in perpetuating herd behaviour. Its immeasurable amount of user-generated content serves as

8190-521: Was from Ernest Rogers, whose 1949 book The Old Hokum Bucket contained a chapter entitled "We the Sheeple". The Wall Street Journal first reported the label in print in 1984; the reporter heard the word used by the proprietor of the American Opinion bookstore. In this usage, taxpayers were derided for their blind conformity as opposed to those who thought independently. The term was first popularized in

8281-577: Was hard not to see the similarities between their tactics and the Baader-Meinhof group (also known as the Red Army Faction [RAF]). All of these examples portray how the process of cascades were put into use. Moreover, it is important to understand the framework of cascades to move forward in a more globalized society. Establishing a foundation to understanding the passage of information through transnational and multinational organizations, and even more,

#863136