Bandwagon Effect

By Yiler Huang

The Bandwagon effect is a term used to describe the situation in which people follow what other people are doing blindly without thinking about it much. It happens a lot because it allows us to make decisions quickly just by looking at what other people are doing. The other reason is that people don’t like to be excluded from the public, thus we often follow what other people are doing to feel we are connected to other people.

Two examples of this effect are: sports and fashion. When people are asked what sports team they like the most, there is a high chance that they will tell you it’s the winning team because it’s also a lot of people’s favorite team. In fashion, people would often wear things that are popular or what other people are wearing to keep up with the ever-changing nature of fashion so they don’t feel left out.

Even though this effect is very common, it can still be dangerous to fall into this effect. Just because other people are doing something does not mean what they are doing is good or right. It is very possible for someone to follow something that might not be good for them. For students, these things might be smoking, drinking alcohol etc. Whenever we make choices, we need to make sure why we are making the choice and think about the consequences these choices would bring.