Social proof.

I used to walk past empty restaurants. Why not, surely without patrons, the assumption of bad service, bad food and bad experience was a given. That was until I opened my own establishment back in the late 90s, catering for what I thought might be a new wave of foodies interested in the flavours of southern USA and Mexico. Attendance at the Santa Fe cooking school and introducing new flavours and ideas was all I needed for my start up. That was until people walked by and went to the local greasy spoon, not because the food or service were any better, far from it, but because it was filled with patrons. I could never understand the reasoning behind the herd mentality or as Cialdini calls it, pluralistic ignorance. Why didn't people experiment, leave their comfort zone or want to be early adopters was a mystery to me.

This mentality of group behaviour has a name, social proof, and Wikipedia describes it as “a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others, reflect the correct behaviour for a given situation, driven by the assumption the surrounding people possess more information about the situation.” So it wasn't my cooking after all, just a mistrust of individual decision making. The restaurant survived and eventually gained crowds via social proof from locals looking for something new, people hearing about a new cuisine and word of mouth generated by individuals of influence. It's these individuals willing to be first, willing to lead a tribe and willing to be scrutinised I thank the most for the success of the restaurant and I was determined from then on, to not be part of the herd mentality, for there was so much more to discover if you were brave.

The famous murder case in 1964, where Catherine Genovese was stabbed to death over a period of 35 minutes with over 30 witnesses in surrounding apartments, gave new highs to pluralistic ignorance as everyone assumed everyone else would report the murder and no one did. It was social proofing to the maximum where everyone assumed and no one acted. Social proofing is not a new phenomenon but one taken to great lengths today by the social media giants or anyone wanting validation of their skill and expertise online. How often have you seen bloggers, tweeters, celebrities and anyone selling a product, brandishing the number of followers, after all a 10 million people can't be wrong and we're wired to learn from others, so let's follow this site. You can go back as far as 1955 for examples of social proofing, when Ray Kroc of McDonald's fame put up the conspicuously aggrandising sign "over one million served", leading people line up for hamburgers for the first time in history.

The trick to not becoming a part of the herd is having a mind of your own, trusting your judgement and not being concerned what people think, if you have your own thoughts and ideas. Seems simple enough, but all the indications point to global herds led by a few and validated by many. Everyone has the opportunity to stand out and make a difference, but it takes unflinching individualism. How brave are you?