Bandwagon effect
phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases the more that they have already been adopted by others
The bandwagon effect is a psychological phenomenon where people adopt certain behaviors, styles, or attitudes simply because others are doing so. More specifically, it is a cognitive bias by which public opinion or behaviours can alter due to particular actions and beliefs rallying amongst the public. It is a psychological phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases with respect to the proportion of others who have already done so. As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon", regardless of the underlying evidence.
Following others' actions or beliefs can occur because of conformism or deriving information from others. Much of the influence of the bandwagon effect comes from the desire to 'fit in' with peers; making similar selections as other people is seen as a way to gain access to a particular social group. An example of this is fashion trends wherein the increasing popularity of a certain garment or style encourages more acceptance. When individuals make rational choices based on the information they receive from others, economists have proposed that information cascades can quickly form in which people ignore their personal information signals and follow the behaviour of others. Cascades explain why behaviour is fragile as people understand that their behaviour is based on a very limited amount of information. As a result, fads form easily but are also easily dislodged.
The public source identifies “Bandwagon effect” as phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases the more that they have already been adopted by others. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bandwagon, effect and phenomenon.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bandwagon effect” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.