Length of Applause Not Tied To Quality of Presentation 138
sciencehabit writes "The next time you hear extended applause for a performance you didn't think was that great, don't feel like a snob. A new study reveals that audience response has more to do with the people in the seats than those up on stage. Applause, it turns out, is a bit like peer pressure. In a study of college students, individuals were more likely to start clapping if a larger percentage of the audience had already started. If 50% of the audience was clapping, for example, individuals were 10 times more likely to start clapping than if 5% of the audience was clapping. People stop clapping for the same reason. Even more surprising, the applause for a bad presentation could be just as long as applause for a good one. Random interactions in the audience can result in very different lengths of applause regardless of the quality of the talk."
This just in! (Score:5, Insightful)
Popularity of performers also not directly proportional to talent.
applause after bad performance... (Score:3, Insightful)
just means everybody is sooo happy they get to go home.
Is there nothing else left to study? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, important stuff, like cure for cancer?
They have to study what is obvious to anybody with a bit of a common sense? And how is this non-story ends up on /.?
Re:Basic social instinct? (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a friend in high school who had a very similar response to The Herd. He would always do the opposite, claiming non conformity.
He asked me once why I had similar non conformist viewpoints, but didn't engage in the same sort of 'opposite' behavior he did. I answered that anti-conformity is simply a different form of conformity and that he wasn't being truly independent at all.
If your behavior is a reaction to someone else's behavior, you're not thinking for yourself. If you come to some conclusion on your own that happens to be similar to the herd mentality, it doesn't diminish your personal opinion. To think so is self limiting for no reason other than being contrary.