Herd effect: Behind every herd effect, there is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Tell a joke first. An oil tycoon went to heaven to attend a meeting. As soon as he entered the conference room, he found it crowded with people, and there was no place to sit down. So he had a brainwave and shouted, "Oil has been found in hell!" " This shout doesn't matter, the oil tycoon in heaven has gone to hell, and soon, there is only himself left in heaven. At this time, the tycoon thought, everyone ran over. Did you really find oil in hell? So, he also rushed to hell. ...

This is a typical herd mentality brought by herd effect.

Sheep are a very messy organization, they usually run blindly together, but once one sheep moves, other sheep will plunge into it without thinking, regardless of the possibility of wolves ahead or better grass not far away. The so-called herding effect is actually a phenomenon that the individual's ideas and behaviors will be influenced by the group, which will lead to the behavior consistent with the majority. Herd effect is a herd mentality and the resulting blind obedience phenomenon.

Faber, a French psychologist, once did a famous "caterpillar" experiment: he put many caterpillars on the edge of a flowerpot, end to end, forming a circle, and scattered some caterpillar's favorite pine needles less than 6 inches around the flowerpot. The caterpillars began to walk around the flowerpot one by one. An hour passed ... a day passed ... The caterpillars stubbornly kept spinning and walked for seven days and seven nights, and finally they died of hunger and fatigue.

Psychologically speaking, the cause of death is that this caterpillar has the habit of "following" and always blindly follows the caterpillar in front. ...

Herd effect is more likely to make people have herd mentality under the following circumstances:

First, when the situation is ambiguous, it is the most critical variable. When it is uncertain about what is the correct response, adaptive behavior and correct viewpoint, it is most easily influenced by others.

Second, when the situation is at a critical moment, and often happens in vague scenes at the same time, we usually don't have time to stop and think about what action should be taken, but need to take immediate action, so we naturally observe others' reactions and then follow others' actions.

Third, the position of individuals in the group, people are often willing to listen to the opinions of authoritative people, while ignoring the views of ordinary members, and the behavior of the head sheep plays a key role.

Case 1: the chasing up and down of retail investors and the skyrocketing and plunging of bookmakers

In the capital market, due to insufficient information, or lack of understanding, or uncertainty of the market, most retail investors make judgments by observing the behavior of investors around them, and the herding effect is more obvious. Due to the huge retail base, this herd effect is more likely to cause irrational behavior as a whole.

In the capital market, the phenomenon of retail investors chasing up and down is very obvious. When the market rises rapidly, the energy of individual investors accumulates rapidly, which is easy to form a convergent herding effect, and people are full of confidence in chasing up. When the market dived, the panic psychology began to have a chain reaction, and people fled in panic, which made the diving volume increase rapidly and many stocks were killed on the floor.

This is the fundamental reason why the stock rises slowly and falls quickly in the bull market and falls slowly in the bear market. It is by taking advantage of this herding effect that the banker builds a position and pulls it up in a fast-falling ship. But we must remember that under normal circumstances, it is not the time to go out, but the reverse may be right, just as Buffett said: when others are afraid, I am greedy; I'm afraid when others are greedy.

Case 2: The catering industry queues up for meals.

Many people have had this experience. If you go to a strange place to eat, you should first look at which store is crowded and which store is lined up at the door, because everyone wants to believe that a crowded place must be more delicious than a less crowded place. This is the herd mentality brought by the typical herd effect.

In some shopping centers where people gather, you can often see the phenomenon of long queues in restaurants, especially in online celebrity tea shops in recent years, from a little bit of coco and ancient tea at the beginning to Xi, Lujiao Lane and Naixue tea later. ...

The long-term queuing of online celebrity milk tea is more likely to be a well-designed marketing strategy besides product innovation, scene creation and consumption experience!

In the process design of milk tea, merchants deliberately lengthen the production time of milk tea, extend the waiting time of consumers through "slow work and fine work", and improve the queuing popularity of shops, thus forming a virtuous circle of "the more people queuing to buy, the more people buying, and the more people queuing".

Case 3: Real estate developers hired people to queue up before the opening, deliberately covering the market and creating the illusion of tension.

Real estate developers know how to use the "herd effect" to push up housing prices and achieve rapid sales. Some developers hire people to queue up before the opening of the market, some developers deliberately hoard land and real estate, creating the illusion that the market is in short supply, and some developers publish the expected rising information through all kinds of false advertisements, leaflets and "soft texts" and other opaque information ... These developers deliberately create a tense atmosphere, convey the forecast of rising house prices among consumers, and urge them to buy under the effect of "herd effect", while the group buying behavior of consumers and the homeopathic price increase behavior of developers. Then, the herd effect happened, people began to flock to it, and house prices began to soar. Anyone who sees that crazy situation will have the impulse to buy.

Case 4: Live broadcast with goods among network celebrities

Internet users in China have always had an obvious "herd effect" feature. The more people buy "online celebrity products", the more they should try to follow suit.

Recently, the live broadcast of goods among online celebrities is very popular. Luo Yonghao's first show and Viya's live broadcast selling rockets have earned enough attention. At the same time, the live broadcast of goods among online celebrities has also become a new business model. The business logic behind it is to grasp the herd mentality of netizens online shopping.

With the countdown of the anchor "3,2, 1" ending, tens of thousands of items were sold out instantly. It is difficult for netizens watching the live broadcast to resist the temptation of such large-scale group concerted action, and the consumption impulse is stimulated. So many people are buying it, I want to buy it, too. I feel that if I don't place an order, I will not be integrated into the group and will be "abandoned" by the group. This is the typical herding effect.

Most online celebrities with live broadcasts don't know the quality of their products. Although they sometimes experience the products they want to sell, it is difficult to really control all the products, which leads to the frequent occurrence of fake and shoddy goods with live broadcasts among online celebrities, and they themselves are also to blame.

Herd effect is widely used in business. Behind every herding effect, there is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Without independent thinking and judgment, we may easily become sheep to follow, and may eventually be cheated and slaughtered. Would you like to be that silly sheep?