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<\/a>Bandwagon Effect Meme<\/p><\/div>\n
Although the bias was proposed in 1954, nowadays, the constant pressures to always be up to date with the different trends will only continue to grow as social media continues to take over our lives. The recent creation of social media and other forms of communication only help such cognitive biases flourish. The image to the right is a meme that is mocking the bandwagon effect. Nowadays, people\u2019s eating habits are changing purely because things like “not eating gluten” are cool. People are ignoring actual evidence about different product’s true purposes, and hopping on the bandwagon. People’s desires to consume, buy, and use certain products are not always influenced by the product\u2019s usefulness, but rather by what trend setters are doing. For example, extraneous items that are not necessities of life, such as iPhones, are typically bought based on consumer reviews. Think about things you have purchased in the past. Can you think of any good examples of products you bought because it was advertised as, “everyone’s favorite,” or “America’s best?”<\/p>\n
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Examples of the bandwagon effect can also be seen within recent movies. One example comes from one of my favorite movies, The Lego Movie. <\/em>This movie is a great, and funny, example of the bandwagon effect in the works. Characters in the movie do exactly the same thing every day. They all drive the same car, eat the same food, and go to the same stores because no one wants to go against the norms. In the movie, there are alternate universes that the characters could explore, but none of them want to be, \u201coriginal,\u201d and try to go against the societal opinions. Regardless of the main character, Emmett’s personal desires or beliefs, he does everything that everyone else in the society does so that he feels like he can fit in.<\/p>\n The image below is from the movie where the main character has fallen as a victim to the bandwagon effect because all of his behaviors are influenced by what others in the society are doing, and he just ignores his own personal desires. In the movie, all of the characters live in identical apartments that look just like the one pictured below. Additionally, they all sing a song called, \u201cEverything is Awesome,\u201d which alludes to the fact that everyone needs to jump on the bandwagon and say that everything in society is, \u201cawesome,\u201d regardless of their personal beliefs.<\/p>\n Gif from The Lego Movie<\/p><\/div>\n Furthermore, one example of the bandwagon effect in real life is seen in an article called, “Household energy use: Applying behavioral economics to understand consumer decision-making and behaviour,” (Frederiks, Stenner & Hobman, 2015). The article explored how energy-saving behaviors, such as conserving or carelessly using energy, counter people\u2019s personal values and consumer interests to further understand behavioral economics. Participants were given made up information that their neighbors were either using more, less, or the same amount of energy per week as them. Researchers found that psychological and behavioral economics can be used to explain some economic behaviors. Consumer decisions are in fact driven by people perceptions of a situation, and specifically the bandwagon effect. For example, when people within a neighborhood are given information about how much electricity their neighbors are using, they will alter their energy use to match that of the others in their neighborhood. It became evident that being the outcast is a scary reality, so people jumped on board with the community norms to feel better about their behaviors.<\/p>\n<\/a>