How Does The Sheep Herd Mentality Work?
The herding of sheep can be a very powerful concept. The herd is moved from one direction to another by a special breed of dogs. The study of this has it unclear which algorithm the dogs use or if any exist at all.
This can be compared to other types of social organisms that form and maintain a "swarm-like" behavior and a study was done by the Journal of the Royal Society Interface to try to understand the general algorithm that appears in sheep-herding mentality.
Herd mentality, or mob mentality, describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors. Examples of the herd mentality include stock market trends, superstition and home décor. Social psychologists study the related topics of group intelligence, crowd wisdom, and decentralized decision making.
-Wikipedia
The figure below describes the switching between driving and collecting in a simulated trajectory when herding.
The accumulated result of a simulation with 100 agents. The agents' starting and end positions are marked with circles and their trajectories throughout the simulation are thin lines. The trajectory of the shepherd (thick line) starts at (15,170) and goes directly for the agent furthest from the GCM at coordinates (245,140). When the shepherd approaches the agents aggregate and are eventually cohesive enough to start herding when the shepherd is at position (170,200). After a short straight driving phase, the shepherd is forced to go to one flank and then immediately the other to collect agents drifting off. This process of driving and collecting then goes on until the GCM of the group of agents is within 10 units from (0,0). The box highlights the driving phase and collecting phase which results in the side-to-side motion of the shepherd.
The rules of this algorithm shows adaptive switching and collecting agents when they are too separated, and driving them once aggravated is the outcome.
These rules functions offer:
- reduce the probability that the group splits
- allow the shepherd to keep the group moving towards a target location
A side-by-side motion emerges as the result of this algorithm.
Seperating From the Herd
When it comes to a social group, adults can easily be socially conditioned and to accept the information from others as truth. Accepting ideals that turn into our own.
We tend to gather in social groups to make us feel we belong and are apart of something to ease our fear. The question here is, are we supposed to be that way or are we being herded by individuals? This is where breaking free from the herd will cause someone to get on the right track and seek their own individuality to be productive in their own manner.
Breaking free from the herd in society can have its consequences. Leaving the social herd can cause unease seeing an individual not doing what the rest of the group is doing. Some may view is as a fault in collective stability and at times leads to being labeled outcast for defying the herd. In a social group, there is a lot more complexity because we created the idea of "guilty by association."
"Always on the trending page. That person is colluding in the circle jerk, they're all in on it. Look who voted on their post"
Without the proper knowledge or information for the herd to be their own individual, they will blindly continue to be a part of the herd because that is all they know.
Edification
the instruction or improvement of a person morally or intellectually.
"the idea that art's main purpose is to supply moral uplift and edification"
When used in terms of people, when we talk about others and you hear something like "he/she is a whale," that is a form of edification to create the the perception of a person morally or intellectually and appear as someone to seek approval from, having a different approach with respect as to take one seriously or not. This tends to lead to idolization within groups and begin to follow the individual in herds.
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Finding Your Own Way
Learning the truth can create a sense of loss because the mind is not familiar thinking this way. It was used to having a thought process of what once was their reality. It can be so complex and confusing to a person they will deny the very thought and defend the herd mentality as reality and truth. The mere idea that harm can come to an individual's sense of security and self identity can bring a person into such an ignorant, denial of truth.
Being your own individual can be split to 2 paths. We usually look at it in terms of good or bad, or right and wrong. Knowing the truth to your individuality gives you the power to decide to do good or bad, lead or follow. If the herd understood their own individuality and knew to walk their own path, we would not need an individual to be dependent on to move a herd in a direction. This is something we can do self-collectively.
With having enough truthful information and understanding of knowledge, this can give the ability to manifest your own path from thought.
"There is no path to choose but only to create your own"
-@bitcoinparadise
The Most Common Reason Why We Fail To Break Free
Laziness.
Many of us become so lazy to take the time to create. Even so lazy to make a decision. Relying on others or a machine to do the work. I know most of us don't remember people's phone numbers by heart anymore. We create excuses all the time, "TL:DR," "Can't read every single post." That's okay if you don't vote or read every post, there are plenty of other whales and minnows that can read a person's post.
Information is more valuable than a monetary gain. Wouldn't it make sense to make the decision to read the information that's presented on posts? For all you know, you could be missing out on a private key that holds a lot of digital tokens or the way to get a lot of it.
We have the ability to set the standards we want ourselves to have by being true to self and others. There is a responsibility to share truthful information and lead by example to provide valuable information that can benefit others and yourself. Social media is for communicating information to one another whether it be media or text. We once saw the value in the content that was created by individuals that led to a change on how we receive information. But now we let ourselves become that way and look for quantity over quality.
We Were Taught To See The Negative
Here is a little test to show that majority will view things from a negative aspect.
- 4+5 = 9
- 7-2 = 5
- 3+1 = 4
- 6-4 = 1
- 8+3 = 11
From the list of equations, most of you probably noticed that there is one that is "not right". "6-4 does not equal 1". "It's a mistake". There was 1 wrong answer here but how many of you had the first thought of saying " 4 out of 5 are correct."
This is part of the way we were taught to problem solve, and evaluate something to determine the value of what we see. We tend to focus on the negative and at times forget how much good and positive information is overlooked because the focus has been on the negative.
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This was so well done! Thanks for putting all of this together. Definitely need to get out of that mentality!
Thank you very much! We all have gone through it at one time or another. The importance to become aware that you can create your own path.
Sheeps are everywhere! This mentality affects millions across the globe! Common in all walks of life!
Very true, it even affects cyberspace! :P
Great write up and follow up on @krnel post yesterday! Thanks for partaking to this important discussion for all to be aware of. All for one and one for all! Namaste :)
Thank you and I appreciate you taking the time to read it. Yes I have been having many discussions with @krnel and I agree with him and have the same goal to be the change.
Followed and RS
Excellent post, Mr. @bitcoinparadise, very interesting, excellent your point of view, thank you very much for sharing
Yes, nice one @bitcoinparadise ! ...and reading the post is very important, doing anything but with the right intention !
Yes, It could have been a post on how exactly to make a million dollars, or how to live forever. Information that could be really valuable to many.
Am I the only sheep that will leave a comment?
I want to add to "The Most Common Reason Why We Fail To Break Free", and this is just my opinion.
I think that the main reason (or maybe the meta reason) for not breaking away from the herd is due to fear, which is the precursor to laziness, apathy and to capitulate to popular thinking. The fear of not being accepted, fear of the dealing with backlash and the fear of the mental and physical work required to maintain integrity when taking a position away from the herd.
I observe this in myself, I choose to try and stay anonymous due to the social cost I might face for my ideas. My fear stems from examples in history, for example: I posted yesterday about Yevgeny Zamyatin, who paid dearly for going against the herd, not once but twice. First before the revolution on behalf of Marxist revolution. Then after the revolution, against Marxism, after he had experienced the result of the revolution.
LB
Yes fear would be a precursor in a sense but In the case of Steemit and online social media, my opinion is laziness.
Fear will be the main reason in the future when Steemit is big and lots more money is involved.
Thank you for the comment :)
This is such an accurate topic I really enjoyed reading . I rather stay The howling wolf I am :)
Are comments hidden? I didn't know that this was possible.