The Bandwagon Effect- The strongest working force in the Social World.

Suppose you are going to buy a phone. You are excited about it. You are confident that the new phone will add a new dimension to your life, making it more productive,efficient and stylish. Which phone will you prefer? A Blackberry will be the first choice if i were you( provided i have had a hefty purse). You judge that the Blackberry is a great phone and decide to spend 20k bucks on it.

But how do you know that Blackberry is a cool device? Have you tested it? Or is your dad the R&D chief of RIM(Research in Motion, the makers of Blackberry). Actually, you don't. Yeah, admit it. You only perceive it to be a good workhorse and your perception may be wrong. And why you perceive it to be so? Because it is the perception of most of the people around you. It is not your opinion. It is the opinion of those around you, which becomes the opinion of yours. The opinion of yours is the opinion of others. And thus others have the power to make decisions for you and they,in turn hold a particular opinion because someone else holds it, and so on. That is how the influence travels from one corner to the other. 

The opinion of most of the individuals becomes the opinion of others. You may be wronged by the public opinion if you don't test it, or if your is dad is not the R&D chief of Blackberry. Most people in the world are incapable or unwilling to do the testing. This causes the lies to propagate on and on. And then you imbibe these lies. The lies lead to failure. The failure leads to misery and misery leads to more misery. 

I guess most of our miseries are self inflicted because neither our dad is the R&D chief of Blackberry and nor are we good testers of the beliefs and opinions. 

Do we have any hope? Yes. Actually, we have twin hopes. One, knowledge and other your discretion. 

SO,BEFORE YOU MAKE A OPINION, BE CAREFUL, NOT ONLY BECAUSE IT IS GOING TO AFFECT YOUR LIFE, BUT IT IS GOING TO BECOME THE OPINION OF SOMEBODY ELSE.

The Bandwagon Effect is the main force behind the advertising world. The goal of the advertisers is to make more and more people believe in the merit of their product. And in order to do that they must make more and more people believe in that, for we trust our peers. 

Thus,we can think of beliefs in the terms of groups, the groups of thought(in turn, action). The thoughts exist at the level of a group. What of the independence of an individual? nothing? The independence of thought exists only for those who have the ability to test and judge, or whose dad is the R&D chief of Blackberry........