constitutional
02-18-2008, 12:58 PM
Study: People flock like sheep
LEEDS, England, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Researchers in England find people really are like sheep and have a flock mentality -- a finding that could be used for good, they say.
The study, published in the Animal Behavior Journal, finds it may take a minority of about 5 percent of people to influence the other 95 percent of a crowd of more than 200 people to go in the same direction.
"There are many situations where this information could be used to good effect," study leader Jens Krause of the University of Leeds says in a statement. "At one extreme, it could be used to inform emergency planning strategies and at the other, it could be useful in organizing pedestrian flow in busy areas."
In the experiments, larger and larger groups of people were directed to randomly walk around a large hall and to refrain from communicating in any way with any other person. A few people are selected to be "informed individuals" and given more detailed instructions about where to walk.
In all cases, the "informed individuals" are followed by the others in the crowd, forming a snake-like structure. Krause observes in most cases the participants don't realize they are being led.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.newsdaily.com/Science/UPI-1-20080215-16060300-bc-britain-peopleflock.xml
Did they really need to do a study to prove this?
Lets give some examples of people being sheep.
LEEDS, England, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Researchers in England find people really are like sheep and have a flock mentality -- a finding that could be used for good, they say.
The study, published in the Animal Behavior Journal, finds it may take a minority of about 5 percent of people to influence the other 95 percent of a crowd of more than 200 people to go in the same direction.
"There are many situations where this information could be used to good effect," study leader Jens Krause of the University of Leeds says in a statement. "At one extreme, it could be used to inform emergency planning strategies and at the other, it could be useful in organizing pedestrian flow in busy areas."
In the experiments, larger and larger groups of people were directed to randomly walk around a large hall and to refrain from communicating in any way with any other person. A few people are selected to be "informed individuals" and given more detailed instructions about where to walk.
In all cases, the "informed individuals" are followed by the others in the crowd, forming a snake-like structure. Krause observes in most cases the participants don't realize they are being led.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.newsdaily.com/Science/UPI-1-20080215-16060300-bc-britain-peopleflock.xml
Did they really need to do a study to prove this?
Lets give some examples of people being sheep.