Mob Moods

I’ve been really interested recently in the herd mentality of people. It’s been impressing me how herd driven we are; how we so easily pick up on signals from our environment and let them influence us; most of the time without us even knowing. It isn’t really surprising once you think about, seeing as we’re social creatures, which move in flocks very similar to other herd animals, but I don’t think many people actually sit down and think about it. Which is a shame, because it means that you’re even less in control of your actions than you think you are.

To give you a couple of examples. In the café I work in you can really see the herd mentality of people – you can sense the energy changing around the room as different things happen and different moods grip the crowd. For example, people never leave one table at a time. It is almost always several tables that leave at once. The more tables that leave, the more other tables that suddenly decide to leave as well. Sometimes the whole café will empty in the space of a few minutes. All of these people believe, of course, that they are independent and exercising free will. In many ways they are. It just happens to be the case that their free will is heavily influenced by the will of the people around them.

The same thing can be said for drinks and food and such. Often there will be waves of specific drinks being ordered. We’ll have cappuccino rounds, for example, or suddenly everybody starts ordering orange juice (which is really annoying, because you only have so much fresh orange juice at any one time).

Tipping is another one of these wave things. When one or two tables walk away without tipping, suddenly others seem to tip less or not at all. If a group of people walk up to pay, however, and the first person obviously gives a tip then suddenly you’ll find the whole group doing it. And if the first person is so nice as to say that your service was spectacular and fantastic (you might be surprised, but it does happen!) then suddenly everybody’s tip goes up! That person’s experience is completely different from everybody else’s, after all they were at a different table, but nonetheless their opinion influences the opinions of others.

Mood is another one of those amazingly contagious things. Sometimes I have to take over the terrace from somebody who isn’t really all that ‘on the ball’ or service oriented. Often, when that happens, there’s a negative energy over all the tables. The thing is, this negative energy infects newcomers – even though they don’t realise it. They directly act more critical, tip less and generally hang around for shorter. It normally takes me about an hour or even an hour and a half to change that mood around; then, when that mood is changed, suddenly everybody that arrives new takes on the mood of the rest of the terrace and is far more accepting, generous and friendly. I’m not making this up. Admittedly it’s anecdotal evidence, but it something I have experienced time and again.

The people subconsciously take in the mood cues of others and seriously let them influence their own. The thing is, they aren’t even aware of it happening. In my opinion, this gives their environment an immense amount of power over them. Or, to put it another way, it gives the people an immense amount of power over you. You can’t change it, but you can certainly try to be aware of it happening.

The first step towards being honest and objective is to be aware of your own self-deceit and subjectivity.