I was just thinking about the humans' susceptibility to emulation of social behavior. The easiest experiment is at the zebra crossing. Red light is on (make sure first there is not traffic and any possible danger near you), you begin to go over to the other side, people will always follow you. It is very simple experiment, but it shows that we act instinctively. We follow the herd. Our brain makes us to move and follow others without any rational thought about how dangerous it could be.
We follow the group convinced that it must be good and accepted behavior when others people act the same way. Besides it saves us time to make decisions ourselves, it is kind of shortcut. The same phenomena we can observe on the tram in the video below. Just watch the young guy, how his surprise turns into engagement. No matter how strange it is what others do, it must be OK if they do it - social proof.
This is promotional video of Polish agency Artegence that works with building communities - excellent and clever spot that shows in a simple way what they are good at. They have also superb website - available in English as well.
Tags: society, sociology, emulation, social proof, artegence
