Argumentum ad populum: The authority of the many
Many of us can probably remember an instance in our life in which we made an assumption that if something is accepted by many, it is true. It is where we do something for the most part just because others are doing it. However, what some people may not realize is that in that situation, they succumbed to something known as the bandwagon effect. This often happens to many of us. If peers in your class decide not to complete an assignment and engage themselves in some other activity, you too would think of going in their way. Nevertheless, everyone doing something has nothing to do with you or why you should not complete the assignment.
The bandwagon fallacy occurs when someone adopts a viewpoint or a belief simply because it is widespread. This is incorrect since their justification for that idea is based solely on the opinions of other people and not on any evidence to back it up. We cannot just inflate popularity as evidence.
Imagine this situation. You are driving a car, and you happen to stop the vehicle at a red signal. You see people around you refuse to take notice of the signal and move past. How many of us will wait for the signal to turn green? In such a case, most of us tend to follow the others and ignore the signal. Is this right to our conscience? Certainly not. But we prefer following the authority of the many. This, my friend, is the bandwagon effect, where people tend to follow the crowd. This effect, or fallacy, as we could rightly call it, has the potential to influence almost everything in our life, ranging from simple decisions to political viewpoints. We could call this ‘herd behavior’. Many a man does it in an effort to blend in and win favor with others. But why does it have to be in that way? Why do we incline towards adopting the view of others, whilst we have 3 pounds of stuff inside our skull to think of our own?
If you want to influence people’s thoughts, gaining the advantage of this effect is a plus point. But if we fall prey to this fallacy, it influences our line of thinking and does destroy our individuality. Instead of depending on intuition or hasty thinking, taking the time to think about the situation slowly and analytically would help us out. We normally shouldn’t ignore those signs; instead, we should ensure that you critically evaluate them without succumbing to the bandwagon effect. We can explicitly outline the benefits and drawbacks of a course of action that is linked to bandwagon cues before making a decision.
Even though the bandwagon effect can be detrimental at times, such signals aren’t always erroneous, so you should generally examine them carefully rather than dismiss them without thought. In order to reduce our behavior of following the herd, it’s important to think.
‘The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.’
- Albert Einstein
