Bandwagon Effect (research writing)

By Yiler Huang

The Bandwagon effect is a common logical fallacy people often fall into. This fallacy makes us follow what other people are doing without really learning about the actual situation or the consequences doing something would bring. In order to observe this effect in real life, an experiment was designed.

During the experiment, two paintings were presented to research subjects and they were asked to decide which one looked better. They were shown that one of the paintings had higher reviews on the internet, and the other had lower ones. This researcher’s hypothesis was that most people would choose the one with higher reviews due to the bandwagon effect.

For the experiment, two obscure traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e were chosen so the subjects could not make their choice based on their own experience with the paintings. One painting (this will be referred as painting A) depicted fishermen working in a river, and the other one (this will be referred as painting B) shows several people gathered beside a canopy beside a bridge.

Painting A

Painting B

Both paintings had a fabricated star-rating on the bottom left corner. One painting had a rating of 4.8 stars, and the other one had one with 2.6. Some subjects would be shown that painting A had the higher review (this group will be referred to as group 1), and some subjects would be shown that painting B had the higher review (this group will be referred to as group 2). This is to make sure that subjects were really making their decision based on the review and not the paintings themselves. If most people chose the painting with higher review, the effect is proven. Meanwhile if there is no clear tendency in the subject’s choices, the effect is not proven.

Painting A with fabricated review

Responses from 48 subjects in total were collected. 24 belonged to group 1, and the other 24 belonged to group 2. All data were collected in the span of 2 days. 15 from each group were collected on the first day, and 9 were on the second day. Two pieces of information were gathered from each subject: their gender, and the painting they chose. There were 19 female subjects and 5 male subjects in group 1, and 15 female respondents and 9 male respondents in group 2. 14 subjects from group 1 chose painting A, and 10 chose painting B. 8 respondents from group 2 chose painting A, and 16 chose painting B. This researcher wanted to acknowledge that there was not a very good balance between the number of male and female subjects. Therefore, there will be no analyzes based on subjects’ gender in this research.

Group 1 (higher rating displayed with painting A)

Group 2 (higher rating displayed with painting B)

From the results, we can see that the paintings with higher reviews received more votes in both groups. Which means that by simply adding an image of a review is enough to create a bandwagon effect and influence people’s decisions. An interesting finding was that there were only 4 more subjects who chose painting A over B in group 1, but there were 8 more people who chose painting B over painting A in group 2. This researcher assumed that this is because it might happen that painting B fitted the taste in art of the general public better. Therefore, it performed better in group 1 compared to painting A in group 2.

In conclusion, the bandwagon effect is proven in the experiment. It proved that the bandwagon effect can be effectively created by simply putting a fake review on a painting, which influences what people see and further influences their choice. Even though the researcher assumed that this effect could be observed in the research, it was still surprising that such a simple method could be so effective. This showed how easy people can be influenced, which could be somewhat concerning for society. If an image of a review could already be this effective, what about something more well planned and designed specifically to influence people? It is always worth acknowledging that we are more easily-influenced than we often think, and we need to keep this in mind and examine our decisions in our lives.