Humans Naturally Follow Crowd Behavior

Did I miss something? I didn't find this article that insightful in terms of linking the headline to the example. From the article;

"Sure In one study, a few ringers simply joined the crowd and stared up at a spot in the sky for 60 seconds. Then the researchers recorded and analyzed the movements of the people around them. The scientists found that within seconds hundreds of people coordinated their attention in a highly systematic way. People consistently stopped to look toward exactly the same spot as the ringers."

This hardly says 'Humans naturally follow crowd behavior". It more says humans investigate usual behavior. Of course if people start looking up around a person will wonder want is going on, as this is unusual. The same as you would look at a person doing anything unusual like dancing/stripping in a crowd etc. The difference with people all looking up is you have to mimic them to investigate their unusual behavior. I hardly think if these ringers started hoping on one foot that hundreds of people around them would to. The crowd would largely look at them, not follow them.

One of the deepest desires people have is to belong to a group. For the vast majority of history, isolation from a group meant death. Therefor people have a natural instinct to follow the behavior of a group even if it's something they wouldn't do on their own (like riot after their sports team wins/loses). Seeing someone do something also gives people the feeling of approval, whether valid or not.

Every so often, this is observation is re-observed as if its a new revelation.

For those behind the WSJ paywall, you could search the article title in google and follow the result link from there. That would will give you a limited trial for their locked content...

This has to do with a lot more than crowd conformance. All the examples cited reduce to quickly reacting to faces, which governs many other behaviors, like fight/flight survival instincts, emotions, negotiation, socialization, etc.

> a few ringers simply joined the crowd

That isn't the right word... a better word is "confederate".

Duh