To Join the Bandwagon or Not to Join the Bandwagon

Beware of those that jump on the championship bandwagon.

There is no better laboratory for understanding the dynamics of popularity than the basketball gym during a high school dance. As the savannah during migration season is for understanding the interaction and mating patterns of wildlife, so is the basketball court for young people during those magical Friday nights. Students representing a wide variety of cliques gather together in a wide-open space, primed by the music and driven by their burgeoning sexual desires, to interact and signal their virtues to each other.

In this unique setting we can see otherwise disconnected tribes interact in real time, providing an otherwise elusive glimpse into the nuances that dictate teenage popularity. Relationships are made and broken. Social fortunes are won and lost. And life-long reputations are forged, for better or worse, in the fire that is the high school dance floor. It is a scene illustrated in countless coming-of-age movies, none better than the one in “Can’t Buy Me Love”, a by-now-forgotten teen flick from the 80’s staring a young Patrick Dempsey as the nerd who briefly becomes the most popular kid in school only to come crashing back to the ostracization of nerd-hood.

In the movie, Ronald (Dempsey’s character) pays a popular cheerleader to date him, confident that their relationship would elevate his social status, which it does. Soon thereafter, Ronald is confronted with the harrowing prospect of attending an up-coming school dance as a newly accepted member of the popular class. He is afraid that his reputation will be ruined when everyone discovers he doesn’t know how to dance. Desperate, he finds a dance routine on TV that he practices at home before unleashing it at the dance for all to see. What makes the scene funny is the dance Ronald unleashes is an African Anteater Ritual (naturally, his former nerds buddies instantly recognize it). What makes it relevant to our discussion is everyone at the dance, without question and without hesitation, enthusiastically follows along.

You see, everyone wants to think that they are an individual, that they make their decisions independent of the influence of others. Everyone wants to think they’d see the absurdity of the African Anteater Ritual and decline to follow along. Everyone wants to think they are different. But the truth is that we rarely, if ever, make our decisions in a vacuum. We are always influenced by what other people think, do or say. We are all the other kids at Ronald’s high school dance. We are not different.

If you want real world proof, here is just a small fraction of egregious fads — driven purely by their popularity at the time — that have swept over the nation:

• Mood rings
• Bell bottoms
• Hair crimping
• NordicTrack
• Jazzercise
• Shake Weight
• Macarena
• The Running Man
• Zima
• Incense

Perhaps some more recent / current examples of popularity run amok will help drive the point home:

• Fidget Spinners
• Skinny jeans (for men)
• Man buns
• Peloton
• Crossfit
• Toning shoes
• Harlem Shake
• Flossing
• White Claw
• Essential Oil

On a more serious note, the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–8 that drove the global economy to brink of another great depression is an example of most people simply doing what everyone else was doing, of most people following the herd, of most people actively NOT doing something different. Same goes for the irresistible appeal of fake news. Rather that critically consider information and actively seek out counterpoints, most people will just passively receive information that is accepted by their crowd and take it at face value.

No matter how frivolous or consequential, most people most of the time are usually more comfortable jumping on the bandwagon of popularity than we are in blazing our own trail.

Bandwagon Effect

This “following the herd” phenomenon is formally known in behavioral science circles as the Bandwagon Effect. Simply defined, the Bandwagon Effect is people doing what they see other people doing. It rests at the heart of all things popular, from the explosion in fandom of a newly crowned world champion sports team, to dance crazes and fitness trends, to social status in high school and beyond, and to all the ridiculous things we’ve felt incomplete without only to recognize their inherent ridiculousness provided the perspective that only the passing of time allows.

The Bandwagon Effect is among the most powerful and universally recognized human biases. It is the driving force behind the Consensus concept, which has been identified by renowned psychologist and influence expert Robert Cialdini as one of six critical persuasion factors. Basically, if you are striving for popular success or acceptance, no matter the arena, you’d better be able to demonstrate that other people are already on board.

Buy why? Why is it universal to the human experience to care so much about what others think?

The Bandwagon Effect is likely rooted in our evolutionary success as an extremely social species. As outlined in The Social Leap, William von Hippel’s 2018 eye-opening examination of the social dynamics that drove the evolution of Homo Sapiens, our very lives are dependent on successfully integrating into a broader group. It goes something like this:

• Forced out of the relative safety of the forests we had called home, we were vulnerable in the wide-open spaces of the savanna, unequipped to individually fend off the bigger, faster & stronger predators that lie in wait.
• Unable to protect and defend ourselves individually, we learned to rely on each other, we found enough strength in numbers that we were able to defend ourselves collectively against animals that would make a meal of us.
• The safety in numbers lesson is one that remains with us today.

Thanks to the recognition of our individual vulnerability and our ingrained commitment to the greater group, as a species we have lifted ourselves to the top of the food chain, with all challengers having been vanquished, domesticated or relegated to little more than the protein component of our happy meals. However, although we no longer face certain death if forced out of the group, our fear of ostracism persists. We are as socially-dependent as we have ever been. We want and need to be part of the group. And it’s this deep-seated desire for connection that gives birth to social biases such as the Bandwagon Effect.

Because we thirst for social acceptance, we are drawn to the things we see other people doing, or wearing, or saying, and we instinctually become interested in doing, wearing or saying the same things. It is the foundational component of any group, it’s the glue that holds the group together, it is why popularity is a thing.

Interestingly, over the millennia we have come to acknowledge the Bandwagon Effect as both virtue and vice, as something to trust and as something to be wary of. The Bandwagon Effect would be naturally selected out if it no longer served the greater good for our species. That it persists is proof of its value. That said, we have also learned, through countless painful experiences (think of every financial boom & bust in history), that there are plenty of times when following the herd can and will get us in trouble. We celebrate and warn of this powerful bias through sayings and idioms that have been handed down through generations.

Is it the Wisdom of the Crowd or Groupthink?

When we want to champion the virtues of the Bandwagon Effect, we tell each other things like:

• “For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack”: Rudyard Kipling’s “Law for the Wolves” from The Second Jungle Book hits the nail square on the head.
• “When in Rome, do as the Romans”: Fit in & get along; open yourself to local customs and traditions; if you accept the natives they will accept you.
• “Trust the wisdom of the crowd”: (under the right circumstances) The collective voice of the people will reveal the best path forward; the collective is wiser than the individual; this is Yelp!’s whole business model, and it works.

And when we want to warn of the dangers of doing what everyone else is doing, we tell each other things like:

• “The blind leading the blind”: Most would attribute this to the Christian Bible, but it actually originates from the Upanishads sometime between 800–200 BCE; a version of blind leading blind exists in Buddhism as well.
• “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit”: This is the Christian version (NIV, Matthew 15:14)
• “If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you?”: A warning against the perils of peer pressure; this is a favorite of moms and dads for as long as anyone can remember;
• “Beware of Groupthink”: Desire for group harmony can lead to irrational decision making; this is the counter-balance to the wisdom of the crowd; this is the danger of fake news, market bubbles, & social echo chambers.
• “Don’t be a bandwagon fan”: If you’ve purchased post-championship team memorabilia for a team you had no pre-championship affiliation to, this is you; don’t be this person.

Bottom Line

There is no sense in denying the instinct to join the crowd, it’s part of what makes us fundamentally human, it’s one of the key factors that separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom and makes us superior in so many ways. The real trick is to learn when to trust your instinct to run with the pack and when to pull back and take the road less traveled.

In truth, following the crowd will usually lead you in the right direction. Don’t try to be an individual just for individuality sake alone. That’s no fun. However, you also don’t want to be the guy or girl that chooses to join the crowd just because it’s the popular or currently accepted thing to do. You could end up looking ridiculous, or worse. I’m looking at you, person with the spanking-new Washington Nationals Championship hat!