Lecture 14: Crowds

Question 1

social contagion

Answer 1

“sociogenic disorders”

i.e. tiktok
involuntary tics, mechanism of transmission was exposure to TikTok …. these tics weren’t typical Tourettes… but specifically of the tics seen within TikTok videos

Question 2

Wisdom of Crowds

Answer 2

an average guess of all people was most close to actual guess

lots of bad guesses come out to a great guess

law of large #’s
group response more accurate than expert opinion
also works for individual with multiple guesses

Question 3

When are crowds smart?

Answer 3

1. Diverse information
2. independent opinons
3. no systemic bias
4. Many people

Question 4

Anatomy of a Riot

Answer 4

the way that you act within a group changes your behavior from the way you would act individually

group is exhibiting behavior that you wouldn’t have expected based on the individuals alone

Superbowl <- starting a riot even though they won
TV Radio Show <- people shot up a radio station

Question 5

Emergence

Answer 5

when social behavior moves from sand to uranium

sand: put a bunch of sand together and nothing change s
uranium: one isotope behaves a certain way but put a bunch together, and the whole group starts to behave incredibly differently than that one isotope would have

Question 6

When there is bias, it can get amplified

Answer 6

1. teach a person a pattern, even if everybody has a different pattern, they’ll choose squares in the end why? b/c squares are easiest to remember, so that ease acts like a bias

<- works for universal grammar

2. racial bias <- incremental bit by bit, last person is going t o say something incredibly biased … only one person saw the picture

bias is amplified when only 1 person has access to data <- iterated learning/serial reproduction

Question 7

Copying: Human Herding

Answer 7

if there’s an emergency and two exits, ppl usually leave more crowded door bc everyone else is doing it

Question 8

Copying: Like Talk + Vocal Fry

Answer 8

people copying trends that other people have done

Question 9

Copying: Virtual Worlds

Answer 9

there are bands that are objectively good or bad, but bands that are overall mid will be more popular based on social conformity

Question 10

Coordination of Attention

Answer 10

“crystallization”
as soon as people look around, everybody else will crystalize and everybody will look around even if nothing is there

Question 11

Herding w/o leaders (why do locusts go from being happy to going into swarms?) (and what does this mean about social behavior)

Answer 11

emergent behavior <- consequence of simple local laws not of a coordinated effort

locusts eat other locusts when there isn’t enough salt + protein so everybody is running away from each other bc they don’t want to get eaten which causes the swarming

if a few people do it, you can convince a whole group (no matter the size of the group)
conformist behavior of violence <- holocaust, Rwandan genocide

Question 12

organized coordination (what types of religious people support martyrdom) (what types of religious people support sucicide bombings)

Answer 12

predicted by religious attendance (group attendance) and to prayer (private practice)

positively correlated with martyrdom and group attendance and negatively correlated with martyrdom and private practice

proxy for sucicide bombings…. more support of similar sentiments for people who community pray v privately pray