Herd Mentality

Following the herd is a natural tendency in all humans. We grow up focussing on specific subjects in school, we take up specific & popular streams for professional studies and most of us land up in similar jobs, if we are from a similar social, economic and educational backgrounds. And those who choose to enter business, some of them called entrepreneurs, pick popular lines of business and end up repeating, without much of a difference, something done by many others.

I was fortunate to study in an IIM for 2 years during which I saw herd mentality demonstrated in the most conspicuous ways by some of the most intelligent people. As soon as you join, the seniors bombard you with theories on how to spend your time best at IIM - what to do, which committees to target, which courses to take, Consulting or I-Banking or Marketing or Entrepreneurship, which companies to look forward to, how to prepare for them, importance of building your CV, importance of building your CGPA, importance of participating in all kinds of competitions, etc. And all this takes only moments to get ingrained into each of those heads listening intently hoping to making it big in life. The brains are instantly reconfigured with new dreams, new ambitions, new desires. My batch was fooled by telling us BCG was coming on the day we joined, for recruiting for summer internships, and believe me, almost the entire batch went crazy preparing CVs. The seniors even did a fake pre-placement talk. Many who didn't care still went ahead and submitted their CVs, coz everyone else was doing so. A few didn't bother, mostly coz they knew it was all a hoax. Very few actually didn't care and didn't do anything, and had the nerves to tell those "angry" seniors that they didn't give a damn. A lot of such pressure tactics were applied officially and unofficially - by calling it a "hoax" - to mould our heads in shape of that of a typical MBA.

A few do manage to shake themselves up soon after such brainwashes and get back to their original sweet world. (Many of them succum later on.) But most are carried away and the scattered paths of their lives quickly align themselves in a few popular paths. The seniors don't do it just for pleasure, although they do draw a lot of it while trying to shape views. They do, in fact, genuinely believe what they are doing is the right thing - partly because they are also victims of the same brainwashing tradition, and partly because they still haven't seen enough to learn better, coz this being a 2 year MBA, the 2nd year batch is still just aspiring for what they chose a year back and they draw their strength to keep working on the chosen path by displaying firm belief in it - by pretending and by teaching the same to others.

Another striking display of herd mentality can be seen in matters of breaking rules, even law, especially when it is not perceived as rational enough or if following it is costlier than breaking it. Or it could be a cultural phenomenon - not to follow rules, and break them in a herd so that the blame is shared and in effect is on nobody. I see that everyday on the roads in India.

One of the reasons herd mentality sets in so easily in choices people make may be lack of reliable information and insecurity in common people, due to which they rely on social channels for forming opinions and choose seemingly less risky, well-tried and tested alternatives. Secondly, while our societies and families do play the good role of providing a check and acceptance/rejection for everything we want to do, they also, in the process, instil in our minds a lot of doubts and fears. And we end up training ourselves not to apply our minds but to flow with the tide. It may not be conscious, but that's one of the cases where nurture tries to overcome nature. It doesn't always succeed, of course. And thirdly, it could be purely a cultural phenomenon, like the case of violation of traffic rules in India.