herd behavior
Following the masses
Herd behavior is the tendency of individuals to follow what others are doing rather than act on independent judgment.
The term comes from how animals in herds move together, and it applies to humans who buy stocks because everyone else is buying, evacuate because neighbors are leaving, or adopt trends because they've gone viral.
The sell-off was pure herd behavior.
- conformityAdherence to norms
- groupthinkConformity-driven poor decisions
- follow the crowdAdopt majority behavior
- mob mentalityCollective irrationality in groups
- social influenceOthers shaping your behavior
peer pressure · echo chamber · keeping up with the Joneses · grazing · speculative trading · bandwagon effect · swarming · safety in numbers · moral panics · flocking · financial contagion · market bubble · tulip mania · deindividuation · migration patterns · panic selling · run on the bank · social contagion
- horseshorse, mare, mares, stallion, stallions
- animal behaviorsswimming, running, walking, jumping, flying
- conformityconformity, conforming, conform, conformist, conformism
- human follyhubris, pride, vanity, greed, arrogance
- influenceinfluence, persuasion, sway, clout, leverage
- social phenomenasocial change, social norms, social movements, conformity, inequality
herd behaviornonconformity
Rejection of prevailing norms
individualism · contrarianism · dissent · iconoclasm · autonomy
herd, behavior, herds, misbehave, herding, misbehavior, herder, behaving, behaved