Nova Daily - 18 June 2025: The bandwagon effect
Hi!
When earlier today Vanessa decided to put forth a request in the BlogChamps group for blogger's ranking upon demand, she quickly discovered a few things about BlogChamps. People are looking forward to her opinions, and she might have underestimated the response that she'd elicit from the group at large. She's already had to do 23 rankings within four hours (and did).
I love to see this in action, and because of the way that she's decided to do the rankings it's hilarious to see so many names pop by that I have absolutely no idea of who they even are. I'm not into that particular type of entertainment branch. For those who are wondering: just join BlogChamps and find out for yourself (no, I don't have to blink twice). But it did give me the idea of something else to write about.
The bandwagon effect
The bandwagon effect is a specific type of hysteria: the type of sheepishly and blindly marching to the beat of the masses. The bandwagon effect is what happens when people are following the pace and rituals of the group for no other reason than that the rest of the group are doing it.
There is a great element of the bandwagon effect: it gives the feeling of belonging, of being part of something larger. The social cohesion between group members has a beneficial effect on the duration and physical and social well-being of the lives of the members within a group. This is particularly apparent in religious groups that have their weekly religious services, but you'll see this in other groups of people that meet on a regular basis as well.
The dark opposite side of this is also true: when you ostracise members from their fundamental social networks and safety nets, you're taking years off their lives.
A shadow element of the bandwagon effect is that to varying degrees it discourages critical thinking. The icon must be preserved, often at the cost of intellectual integrity or honesty. This might spell bad news to varying degrees: if the group are steering towards a cliff (or to the Weser River next to Hamelin, as in the Pied Piper tale), it's in the group's best interest to go against the current.
Another way in which the bandwagon effect can be seen is in sales pitches, or other forms of peer pressure. "Everyone's doing it, so why shouldn't you?" Well, maybe because I have other things to pursue. "Billions of people can't be wrong!" Well yes they can. The bandwagon effect is an appeal to popularity where you implicitly value quantity over quality. The validity of a point has no inherent correlation to the number of people who believe in it.
There's no image that better describes the flaws of popularity than this image:
You shouldn't always follow the group. But when you find yourself part of a group that plays one of my favourite El Dorado openings, I'll encourage you to try your wits against me. Two little examples of today:
In closing: you'll understand that I'm not against large groups of people. But I'm a proponent of using your own head. And if you've used yours, I'm quite sure that you'll be able to figure out where I am on Vanessa's blogger rankings.
