Herding in humans
Open accessAbstract
Herding is a form of convergent social behaviour that can be broadly defined as the alignment of the thoughts or behaviours of individuals in a group (herd) through local interaction and without centralized coordination. We suggest that herding has a broad application, from intellectual fashion to mob violence; and that understanding herding is particularly pertinent in an increasingly interconnected world. An integrated approach to herding is proposed, describing two key issues: mechanisms of transmission of thoughts or behaviour between agents, and patterns of connections between agents. We show how bringing together the diverse, often disconnected, theoretical and methodological approaches illuminates the applicability of herding to many domains of cognition and suggest that cognitive neuroscience offers a novel approach to its study.
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Various forms of social contagion may share the same functional mechanism.
“This suggests, in other words, that various forms of social contagion may share the same functional mechanism (Raafat, Chater, & Frith, 2009).”
From Automatic imitation of multiple agents: A computational model (2019) · cites this paper as Raafat, Chater, & Frith, 2009
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“…can foster consensus and coordination among agents as they interact with humans and each other, it may also lead to detrimental herding behavior [21, 22], potentially compromising the reliability of agents’ judgments on critical social issues such as voting, policy recommendations, or ethical…”
- Authors
- Raafat, R. M., Chater, N., & Frith, C.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Raafat, Ramsey M.
- ORCID
- Frith, Chris
- Venue
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-10
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 420-428
- ISSN
- 1364-6613 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2102746067
- Cited by
- 479
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 40 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 28 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 0.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (RES-538-28-1001)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Ocean Engineering › Evacuation and Crowd Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems
- Keywords
- herding behavior, conformity, collective behavior, distributed coordination, local interactions, intellectual fashion, mob violence, social network structure
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cognition, Humans, Models, Psychological, Social Behavior, Cognitive Science
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