About Herd Behavior

Herd Behavior

There was a horrible scene in a Korean movie called Tower. Tower Sky was an extremely tall apartment where riches usuallly lived in. One day, the tall building was caught in fire because of an accident. As they realized that Tower Sky was caught in fire, the riches and cooks in the building struggled to get out of the building as soon as possible. Actually, they should not use the elevator since it was burning, as well. But, right after they saw a person was running toward it, all of them tried to get in the elevator. Eventually the people who successfully got in the elevator were all burnt alive in the elevator and died dreadfully. Can you guess the reason why the people did the behavior? I think that was because of basic human instinct called "herd behavior".

Herd behavior is also called 'mob mentality'. Herd behavior is the instinct to just follow other people's behaviors without knowing the reason why they need to do so. People often follow this instinct when they do not have enough time for decision making.

As the matter of fact, not only humans but also other species of animals follow the instinct. Springbucks are the sheep living in Africa. They feed on grass and live in groups. They often can not find enough grass to eat since huge number of springbucks move together and eat together. To find a mew grassland, one of the springbucks start running. After a few seconds, other springbucks in the group run after it without knowing why they need to do so. As the result, when they reach a sharp cliff, all the springbucks fall down and die. Through the example of springbucks, we can find that the actions of other animals are also controled by the herd behavior.

We can find numerous defect of herd behavior in our daily lives. I will tell you one example. Many people watch television programs at the end of the day. Everytime we turn on the TV, we can watch various kinds of advertisements. And I found that the advertisers were using herd behavior to make people buy their products. In most advertisements, famous actors (or actresses) and singers appear and say, "one thousand people are already using this product. Now it's your turn." or "I'm using this product these days and want to recommend it to you. It's really nice" When we are watching the ads, the herd behavior in our mind leads us to buy the product and we unconsiously decide to buy them when we go shopping.

Some people may think, "but herd behavior is sometimes very good. For example, I can buy better shoes if I buy shoes at the famous shop. Also, in emergency situation, it's more likely to save my life if I follow the people who are running in a group." But, I don't think so. As the old Korean saying goes, "there isn't enough food in the famous party". The proverb means that there is nothing special in the place where many people want to go, or the product that many people want to buy. As a matter of fact, this proverb is telling us not to follow the herd behavior.

If human beings are all rational, we may not follow the herd behavior. But we are animals with our own emotions. In other words, we are "irrational animals" who often follow our instinct. Therefore, we should learn the way to control ourselves and should not let the herd behavior in our mind to control us. Springbucks which tended to follow their fellow's action, eventually fell down on the cliff and died. We should remember the destiny of the poor sheep. We should live our life following our intuition, not our instinct since we are not rabbit or chicken, but the Homo sapiens which means "wise people".