Humans are less intelligent than birds, that flock together with the same feathers, when they decide and take action based only on what is popular and through a mental process that does not involve thinking. Sadly, the most intelligent steward of God’s creation endowed with intellect and freewill may not be using such gifts in making decisions in this modern age of information and science. From choosing which post to like and share on social media to who to vote as leaders of government, there seems to be an automatic behavior that does not go through the benefit of a correct thinking process.
We experience how easily we like and share on social media upon seeing a headliner in a post—known as “bait”—without reading through the complete content and without understanding the context—only to discover later that they are fake. Millions recently unfollowed Nas Daily, an influencer, because of his alleged scam involving our national treasure Apo Whang Od—only to regret in the end upon seeing the other side of the story. Many parents are now influencing their children to go into weightlifting with hope that in time they will bring in the Olympics gold and the fortune that follows. The Manny Pacquiao effect is obvious among many Filipinos who have become interested in boxing.
As we approach the election season, there are surveys, some not based on sound scientific processes, that seem to strategically shape some biases over time towards election day. That is the Bandwagon Effect, one of the most dangerous of all cognitive biases.
Cognitive Biases. Heuristics. Fallacy.
Researchers Tversky and Kahneman first introduced the concept of cognitive bias in 1972. Cognitive biases are unconscious errors in thinking rooted in a processing error often arising from problems in memory, attention, attribution and other mental mistakes. These biases result from the brain’s effort to simplify the complexities of the world we live in. The concept of cognitive bias became subject of research and the concept evolved across a wide range of areas of decision making in social behavior, thinking, behavioral economics, education, management, business, finance and health care. There are several forms of cognitive biases, namely confirmation bias, hindsight bias, optimism bias, anchoring bias, among others. While they can be surprisingly accurate, they can also lead to errors in thinking.
Cognitive biases stream from a number of sources, but it is heuristics, which are mental shortcuts, that often are referred to as major contributing role. In the 1950s, Nobel-prize winning economist and cognitive psychologist Herbert Simon originally introduced the concept of heuristics. He theorized that while people strive to make rational choices, human judgment is subject to cognitive limitations.
Heuristics can help solve problems and speed up our decision-making process, but they can introduce errors. Heuristics can also contribute to things such as stereotypes and prejudices. Mental shortcuts can simply label, categorize and classify people. Such may overlook more relevant information and create stereotyped categorizations that are not aligned with reality and sometime even with logical reason.
Cognitive bias called bandwagon effect
The bandwagon effect refers to our tendency to adopt a certain preference, behavior, style, feelings or attitude simply because everyone else is doing it. The more people adopt a particular trend, the more likely that other people will also hop on the bandwagon.
We are highly influenced by the social pressures and subjective norms that are exerted by groups. When it seems like the majority of the members of the group is doing a certain thing, doing that thing becomes increasingly easy. Bandwagon is a type of group thinking that exert pressure to conform.
This is also influenced by our fear of being excluded. We don’t want to be the odd one out. Going along is a comfortable way of inclusion and social acceptance. People also desire to be right and to join the winning side. The social group becomes a source of information of what is right and acceptable. What the majority is doing denotes the impression that it is the correct thing to do.
We would remember some launching strategies of products that capitalize and publicize, (or even suspiciously orchestrate) the queueing of a mass number to draw the attention of those who may, out of curiosity, jump into the bandwagon. Seeing that customers are patiently in queue drives some assurance that the product or service must be good, and therefore, worth trying.
Even the news showing a massive number of people lining up in vaccination center was reason enough for the reluctant Filipinos to get vaccinated too. The same is true with music, fashion, diets, drinks and many aspects of lifestyle.
But such bandwagon holds dangerous implications for matters that are of greater value like elections. For elections, it has been proven that people are most like to vote for the candidate that they think is winning. Surveys that lack credibility, validity and reliability, which only educated people really understand, can have destructive effect on what benefits our country. They simply influence people to jump on the bandwagon. Political strategists will always look for the critical mass and focus their attention on wooing them to achieve a momentum, and eventually benefit from a bandwagon.
The fragility of the bandwagon
The bandwagon effect can be very powerful and leads to the ready formation of fads and trends. However, these behaviors also tend to be somewhat fragile and volatile. People jump on the bandwagon quickly, but they also jump off it just as fast. This is perhaps why fad tends to be so fleeting and quick to change.
How to deal with biases
While the cognitive biases operate in the unconscious, there are steps that can be taken to train the mind into to adopt new patterns of thinking to mitigate the impact of the biases.
First strategy is the awareness of the bias. Understanding that there are biases like these is the beginning in re-framing the mind towards more critical thinking, objective decision-making and purposeful acting. There are actually training on how to reduce cognitive bias.
Another strategy includes an introspective approach to considering the factors that influence decisions like overconfidence or self-interests. You need to think about the influences on your decisions. Such insights may help you make better choices. To avoid the bandwagon in choosing from among the candidates, you may need to create a criteria on what matters most in the selection of whom to vote. Given the valid information you may need to search and gather, you need to go back to the criteria and grade each candidate objectively.
We may need to also learn to challenge our biases. Critical thinking is about suspending judgment to allow us time to gather more evidence towards a more objective decision. Simple reflection of the following matters: what information could you have missed, what relevant information that doesn’t support your view could have been ignored, or what matters could you have given too much weight?
James Goldsmith warns that if we see a bandwagon, it is too late. That is because a bias has just taken place. It is up to us whether we will jump on them unquestioningly or jump on them to overturn them and subvert them. We don’t give up on our intellect to choose and our freedom to change.