Bandwagon Effect The observation that people often do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. The effect is often pejoratively referred to as herding instinct, particularly as applied to adolescents. Without examining the merits of the particular thing, people tend to “follow the crowd”. The bandwagon effect is the reason for the bandwagon fallacy's success. In psychology, the bandwagon effect refers to well-documented behavioral patterns among people and has potentially infinite applications. The general rule is that conduct or beliefs spread among people, as fads clearly do, with "the probability of any individual adopting it increasing with the proportion who have already done so." [1] Thus, as more people come to believe in something, we can expect others to hop on the bandwagon, regardless of whether the underlying evidence is conclusive or not.
Related Words: also known as social proof and closely related to opportunism.
Benefit Lasting, positive and meaningful change over time that results from multiple and diverse learning experiences; refers to collective sociological, psychological, economic, and/or environmental outcomes of education and learning.
Best Practice Commendable actions and philosophies that demonstrate an awareness of standards and can be replicated.
Brain-Based Learning Approaches to schooling that educators believe are in accord with recent research on the brain and human learning. (Adapted from Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)