Surowiecki, James (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few, London: Abacus.
Weisberg, Michael (2013). ‘Modeling Herding Behavior and Its Risks’, Journal of Economic Methodology 20(1), pp. 6–18.
8 Following the leader
Alchian, Armen A. and Harold Demsetz (1972). ‘Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization’, American Economic Review 62(5), pp. 777–95.
Bazalgette, Peter (2017). The Empathy Instinct: How to Create a More Civil Society, London: John Murray.
Milgram, Stanley (1963). ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, pp. 371–8.
— (1974). Obedience to Authority, New York: Harper and Row.
Wallace, Danny (2004). Join Me: The True Story of a Man Who Started a Cult by Accident, London: Ebury Press.
Zimbardo, Philip (2008). The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil, London: Rider/Random House.
Conclusion: Copycats versus contrarians
Granovetter, Mark S. (1973). ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78(6), pp. 1360–80.
Halpern, David (2015). Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference, London: Ebury Press.
Harari, Yuval Noah (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, London: Harvill Secker/Random House.
Maynard Smith, John (1982). Evolution and the Theory of Games, Cambridge University Press.
Morris, Desmond (1969/1994). The Human Zoo, London: Vintage.
Seabright, Paul (2004). The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life, Princeton University Press.
Thaler, Richard and Cass Sunstein (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to many people, especially to Taiba Batool and her team at Yale University Press in London. A few years back I sketched out some ideas that now form the bones of this book. Subsequently and serendipitously, Taiba approached me about writing a book on very similar themes. She has expertly guided this book through all its stages, giving me plenty of encouragement, advice and ideas along the way. I am also grateful to my copy-editors, Rachael Lonsdale and Jacob Blandy. The manuscript that first landed on their desk was much flawed. Their efforts, perseverance and attention to detail helped me to transform it into something immeasurably better. Any remaining errors, omissions and infelicities are mine. I would also like to thank various colleagues and Yale’s anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments, which helped me to focus more clearly on what I am really trying to say. My thanks to my co-authors Christopher Burke, Philippe Tobler and Wolfram Schultz for kindly agreeing to the reprinting of the images used in chapter 3, and for collaborating with me in this fascinating research. My gratitude also goes to the Leverhulme Trust for their financial sponsorship of our Neuroeconomics of Herding research project, during which many of the ideas explored in this book were first formulated. I should also note my appreciation of organisations that provide free and advertising-free access to news and information, primarily Wikipedia but also BBC News Online and Guardian Online.
My enduring gratitude goes to my father and his enviable intellect and memory. He read the manuscript meticulously, was enormously enthusiastic about what I’ve written and gave me loads of invaluable tips and advice – especially helpful in writing the technical discussions of brain scanning, a field in which he was a pioneering radiologist. Perhaps, next time, we shall write a book together. His advice on books to read, and insights relating to neuroscience and evolutionary biology, were invaluable. His own books, some written under his pseudonym John Bates, are a fantastic resource as unique and wide-ranging accounts of the medical and physical sciences, as well as theology and intellectual history.
To my mother, as well as my father, I will always be grateful for encouragement and inspiration, for not seeming to worry about giving me a big head, and for engendering within me a spirit of curiosity. Last but not least, my eternal thanks go to my husband Chris for being a sounding board – even while suffering at the coal face of what probably seemed to him like my interminable efforts to get this book written. Few workaholic wives can be as lucky as I am in enjoying their husband’s unwavering support, patience and good humour.
Illustration credits
1 Andy Last. 4 Burke, Baddeley, Tobler and Schultz (2010), ‘Striatal BOLD response reflects the impact of herd information on financial decisions’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, article 48, http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2010.00048/full. 5 Dave Burns. 6 Heath Robinson Museum. 7 Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands. 8 Photograph by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France.
Index
Abu Ghraib, obedience to authority at (i)
abusive head trauma see shaken baby syndrome
Academia.com (i)
academic standards, research reporting (i)
adaptive advantage (i), (ii)
addiction, and risk-taking (i)
adverse selection, and expertise (i)
advertising (i)
Africa, entrepreneurship in (i)
agentic states (i)
Aggregate Contingent Estimation (ACE) project, and wisdom of crowds (i)
Akerlof, George, on animal spirits (i), (ii)
Akhenaten, pharaoh (i)
altruism, evolutionary influences on (i), (ii)
amateurs, quasi-expert roles (i)
Amron, Alan, and invention of Post-it notes (i)
amygdala (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)
analytical reasoning, and neuroanatomy (i)
anchoring and adjustment heuristic (i), (ii)
animal spirits (i)
and storytelling (i)
Animal Spirits (Akerlof and Shiller) (i)
animals
coalitions (i), (ii)
cultures (i)
herding (i)
anterior cingulate cortex (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)
anti-herding
definition (i)
as a policy tool (i)
in social learning models (i)
ants (i)
anxiety, Freud’s analysis (i)
Arab Spring (i)
Aristotle (i)
artificial groups, Freud’s (i)
see also organised crowds
Asch, Solomon (i)
Asian financial crisis (i)
Assange, Julian (i)
asymmetric information, expertise (i)
Aten sun-disk cult (i)
attachment, Freud’s analysis (i)
authority, obedience to see obedience to authority
autonomy (i)
availability heuristic (i)
Bandura, Albert, and social learning theory (i)
banking, policies to reduce instability (i)
barriers to entry (i)
barter (i)
Bayes, Reverend Thomas (i)
Bayes’ rule (i), (ii), (iii)
Bayesian reasoning (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)
Bayesian updating see Bayesian reasoning
Beatlemania (i)
beauty contests, and speculation (i)
beauty parades, investment management (i)
Becker, Gary (i)
behavioural bias (i)
experts (i)
behavioural ecology (i), (ii), (iii)
behavioural economics (i)
behavioural public policy (i), (ii), (iii)
ethical implications (i)
see also nudges
belonging, Freud’s analysis (i)
benchmarking, of investment funds (i)
bias see behavioural bias
biological control (i)
birds, coalitions in (i)
Bitcoin (i)
black box, brain metaphor (i), (ii), (iii)
Blood Oxygen Level Dependent imaging (i)
Bloomer, Amelia (i)
&n
bsp; bloomers (i)
brain imaging (i)
see also experiments
Breitbart (i)
Brexit (i), (ii), (iii)
Bristol pound (i)
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (i)
Brixton pound (i)
bubbles see dot-com bubble; financial bubbles; knowledge bubbles; rational bubbles; South Sea Bubble; speculative bubbles
Buffett, Warren (i)
butterfly effect (i)
BuzzFeed (i)
camouflage, in animals (i)
cane toads (i)
car choice (i)
celebrity endorsements (i)
Scientology (i)
CEOs, personality traits (i), (ii)
chaotic systems (i)
charioteer allegory (Plato) (i), (ii)
cheap talk (i)
child abuse, expert opinions on (i)
childhood aggression, Bandura’s experiments (i)
childhood influences, Freud’s analysis (i)
choice, of cars (i)
choice overload, and herding heuristics (i)
Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud) (i)
class action suits (i)
climate change
experts’ opinions (i)
mitigation of (i), (ii)
Clinton, Hillary (i), (ii), (iii)
clubs (i), (ii)
coalitions (i), (ii), (iii)
in wolf packs (i)
Codes of the Underworld (Gambetta) (i)
cognitive-emotional processing see System 1 versus System 2 thinking
collaboration (i)
collective action (i), (ii)
collective decision-making (i)
see also wisdom of crowds
collective herding (i), (ii)
defined (i)
on environmental issues (i), (ii)
evolutionary influences (i), (ii), (iii)
and System 1 thinking (i)
commercial reputation, environmental (i), (ii)
committees (i), (ii), (iii)
common groups, Freud’s (i)
see also mobs
communal activity (i)
community leadership (i)
Community Led Sanitation scheme (i)
computational modelling, implications for experts (i)
computerisation (i)
Condorcet, Nicolas de (i)
jury principle see wisdom of crowds
confirmation bias (i), (ii)
conformism, in committees (i)
conformity (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
Bernheim’s model (i)
and docility (i)
evolutionary influences (i), (ii)
and loss aversion (i)
and modern technology (i)
as a policy tool (i)
and risk aversion (i)
versus dissent (i), (ii), (iii)
congregations (i)
consumer pressure, and commercial reputation (i)
consumers (i)
consumption, and identity (i), (ii), (iii)
consumption signalling (i)
contagion, emotional (i)
contrarians, and self-interested herding (i)
conventions
in Keynes’ General Theory (i)
money (i)
cooperation, in slime moulds (i)
copying (i)
corporate social responsibility (i)
correlated opinion (i)
cows, and collective herding (i)
credible signals (i)
Crowd, The: A Study of the Popular Mind (Le Bon) (i)
crowds
collective (i)
psychological (i)
crypto-currencies (i)
cults (i)
Aten’s sun-disk (i)
and group dynamics (i)
Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ (i), (ii)
Scientology (i)
culture, in animals (i)
cyber-bullying (i), (ii)
Damasio, Antonio
lesion patient studies (i)
and System 1 versus System 2 (i)
Darby, Joe (i)
Darwin, Charles (i), (ii)
Dawkins, Richard (i)
death instinct (Thanatos) (i)
Deepwater Horizon oil spill (i)
defecation mapping (i)
demand (i)
democratic institutions, and mavericks (i)
devil’s advocates (i)
Diana, Princess of Wales, mourning for (i), (ii)
diet, evolutionary influences (i)
dilution effects, in predation (i)
diminishing marginal utility (i)
Discourse on Inequality, A (Rousseau) (i)
discrimination (i), (ii)
disgust, and neural activations (i)
dissent, versus conformity (i), (ii), (iii)
distal causes, in evolutionary theory (i), (ii)
docility (i)
dopamine neurons (i)
and risk-taking (i)
dot-com bubble (i), (ii)
dual systems thinking see System 1 versus System 2 thinking
echo chambers (i), (ii)
economics, neoclassical (i), (ii)
ecosystems, in the economy (i)
EcoTeams environmental programme (i)
efficient markets hypothesis (i), (ii)
ego (i), (ii)
Ego and the Id, The (Freud) (i)
Einstein, Albert (i)
electric shock experiments (i)
emotional contagion (i)
emotional herding (i)
emotional processing, and neuroanatomy (i)
emotional-cognitive processing see System 1 versus System 2 thinking
emotions (i)
and entrepreneurship (i)
evolutionary influences (i)
influence of personality (i)
and speculation (i)
empathy (i)
in electric shock experiments (i)
employment (i), (ii)
energy use, and social nudges (i)
enterprise, versus speculation (i)
entrepreneurs (i)
symbiosis with speculators (i)
versus speculators (i)
entrepreneurship (i)
in Africa (i)
emotional influences (i)
and finance (i)
environmental blacklists, and commercial reputation (i)
Environmental Champions programme (i), (ii)
environmental policy (i), (ii)
environmental protection, and commercial reputation (i), (ii)
environmental regulation (i)
environmentalism (i)
envy, Freud’s analysis (i)
equilibrium, experts in (i)
Eros (life instinct) (i)
EU referendum (2016) see Brexit
eusociality (i)
and collective herding (i)
links with Le Bon (i)
evolution
and modern technology (i)
and numeracy (i)
and social influences (i)
evolutionary biology (i)
evolutionary influences (i), (ii)
on emotion (i)
evolutionary neuroscience (i), (ii)
evolutionary theory (i)
exchange (i), (ii)
expected utility theory, versus prospect theory (i)
expectations (i)
see also rational expectations hypothesis
experiments (i)
African entrepreneurship (i)
Asch’s line task (i)
Bandura’s doll experiments (i)
beauty contests (i)
brain imaging (i), (ii), (iii); of Engineer-Lawyer task (i)
on discrimination (i)
dot experiments (i)
electric shocks (i)
on empathy (i)
Engineer-Lawyer task (i)
financial decision-making (i)
fMRI on obedience to autho
rity (i)
fMRI on religion (i)
herding (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
medical diagnosis (i)
of minimal group paradigm (i)
on mirror neurons (i)
mock jury (i)
neural conflicts (i)
neuroscientific (i)
OPower energy use (i)
peer pressure (i)
restaurant choice (i)
sanitation habits (i)
share-picking (i), (ii)
single neuron (i)
on social nudges (i)
Stanford Prison (i)
System 1 versus System 2 thinking (i), (ii)
Tajfel’s (i)
transcranial magnetic stimulation (i)
ultimatum game (i)
urn game (i)
WHO sanitation experiments (i)
expert opinions, in medicine (i), (ii)
experts
and asymmetric information (i)
bias of (i)
Brexit vote (i)
contrarian (i)
equilibrium (i)
herding externalities (i)
motivations (i)
obedience to authority (i)
personality (i)
political tribalism (i)
public communication (i)
reputation (i), (ii), (iii)
and self-interest (i)
social influences on (i)
social learning (i)
social pressures (i)
externalities (i), (ii), (iii)
Facebook (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)
facial tattoos see tattoos
fake news (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)
fans (i), (ii)
Farage, Nigel (i)
fashion, and politics (i)
fast and frugal heuristics (i)
fast versus slow thinking (i)
see also System 1 versus System 2 thinking
feminism, and fashion choices (i)
fen-phen class action suit (i)
financial analysts (i)
financial bubbles (i)
Financial Conduct Authority, asset management market study (i), (ii)
financial consultants, and moral hazard (i)
financial crisis (i)
Minsky’s analyses (i), (ii)
financial fragility hypothesis see financial crisis
financial herding (i)
and emotion (i)
and financial instability (i)
neuroeconomic experiment (i), (ii)
financial instability
and beauty contests (i)
and public policy (i)
see also financial crisis
financial panic (i)
financial policy, to reduce instability (i)
financial speculation see speculation
first-mover advantage (i)
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