The Wisdom of the Crowds -- Humans Flock Like Sheep and Birds

A study has been published showing that humans flock like sheep and birds,

clipped from wwwnotes2.leeds.ac.uk Why we follow the masses like sheep Only five per cent of people in a crowd need to know where they are going for all the rest of them to follow their example. When fewer than five per cent of the crowd know where they want to go, everybody ends up wandering in circles. Furthermore, when they do manage to get from A to B they are often unable to explain how they got there. clipped from www.sciencedaily.com Professor Krause, with PhD student John Dyer, conducted a series of experiments where groups of people were asked to walk randomly around a large hall. Within the group, a select few received more detailed information about where to walk. Participants were not allowed to communicate with one another but had to stay within arms length of another person. clipped from ts-si.org “But what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realise they were being led by others.”

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University of Leeds
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