Topic awaiting preservation: Collective Behavior

why do you think people collectively behave irrationally?

(Edited by iconoclast on 09-01-2005 19:53)

because they're together in it and it's comfortable.

"irrationallly" can be substituted with just about anything as well.

http://www.google.com/search?q=irving+janis+groupthink

It's common for teams, groups, (unproductive) meetings to focus on one thing to the exclusion of alternatives because the group gets a focus and continues on that same path with blinders

Read up on groupthink if you're interested

To be part of a collective group, one has to "dumb down" to a common denominator - to a common level, I guess

But seriously, I guess it is something ingrained into our behavior, probably a type of survival mechanism from the past.

Working and behaving as a group is not as simple a process as one would think as studies of group dynamics shows.

In Nature, the ability to work and behave as a group has better survival chances as that of the individual.

I think they collectively behave irrationally because they singularly behave irrationally.

But if you're talking about this...
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1125483700079_120892900/?hub=CTVNewsAt11
...fear is a little different, but the same animal.

A mob had (to quote Terry Pratchett, I think) a collective IQ equal to it's dumbest member divided by the number of people in the mob.


Justice 4 Pat Richard