The Common Form of Conformity That Shapes History: The Bandwagon Effect.

You need to know about the social contagion no herd is immune to.

You don’t have to know about something to have an opinion on it.

Thanks to the bandwagon effect, you can bypass the messy business of thinking for yourself. As soon as you see the masses moving in one direction, your brain gets to work concocting reasons for why you should do what you were designed to: conform. You probably won’t even realize what’s happening. For a social species like us, sometimes conformity feels like conviction.

When our group isn’t a tribe of 100 people we depend on directly, but a revolving door of total strangers, the bandwagon effect becomes our Achilles’ heel.