Herd Mentality
Also: Bandwagon, Peer Pressure, Echo Chamber,
Confirmation Bias, Argumentum Ad Populum
Class: Evade > Irrelevant
Confirmation Bias, Argumentum Ad Populum
Class: Evade > Irrelevant
Implying others should agree with something because many people believe it.
Why do you dress like that? Everyone thinks it’s weird.
I like to stand out from the herd.
Everyone else thinks white lies are okay.
That doesn’t really justify it.
75% of people surveyed said they oppose this bill. It’s a bad law!
Popularity is influenced by many things, including all the misleading political ads.
Foolacy vs. Fallacy
This is the Bandwagon fallacy (argumentum ad populum).
Some peer pressure is Herd Mentality. It’s not usually stated as flawed logic, but it is implied (you should do it because others do).Also this is common in bad journalism as “people say...” to imply a large herd of popular opinion, whether one exists or not.While most adults have heard of “bandwagon”, they don’t know why it’s called that, and it has no intuitive meaning to young people. (FYI, politicians used to give speeches standing on a type of horse-drawn wagon that was used to pull bands in parades; followers would hop on to show their support. None of that happens anymore.) “Herd Mentality” is a common expression used these days, with an appropriate negative connotation to point out the fallacy.