Crowds, Herds, and Mobs – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #857

Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #857 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veteransaims to share knowledge and wisdom from Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here.

Several years ago, I noticed a book on display at an airport, the title of which intrigued me. It read, ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ written by James Surowiecki. I got the book and read it. The book presents the thesis that a crowd of ordinary people can display wisdom which may be better than the wisdom of experts. However, conditions apply.

A crowd may be defined as a group of ordinary, diverse people who do not relate to one another. The primary conditions for qualifying as a crowd are that they should neither be rebellious nor blinded by the group’s own thinking. If it is so, the group may be smarter than any expert/competent individual alone, particularly in solving three types of problems mainly.

1. Cognitive problems and problem-solving – crowds are good at solving problems with specific answers. For example, which is the best market to shop gents clothes? Please note that the element of any bias should be preempted in the question. The replies to question, who will today’s cricket match may be laden with emotional bias and may not give the same result as is expected from the crowd wisdom.
2. Coordination problem – crowds can be pretty good at coordination member activities in perceptible and imperceptible ways. The huge number of pedestrians walking on the footpaths and roads, crossing at intersections, keeps flowing smoothly without anyone directing them. People do not bump into each other, do not get hit by cars, unless by mistake or deliberate actions. This is imperceptible coordination. Perceptible coordination can be seen in organizing large events where multiple teams work independently to bring the same outcome.
3. Cooperation problems – highly diverse crowds may cooperate for some objective or purpose. For example, highly diverse people agree on measures to tackle climate change and may even actively participate in it without any personal interest or even without proper information.

For a crowd to act ‘wisely’, four conditions must be met.

1. Each person should have some particular piece of information, even if it may be a different interpretation of a known fact. Studies show that a random group of non-experts is more effective than a group of experts when it comes to problem solving.
2. Individual opinions should neither be formed nor influenced by the opinions of those around them. This is a tough condition because people get easily influenced by people near them. The biggest example is that if a group of people on a road is looking at the sky, almost everyone coming near them shall start looking at the sky without knowing what to see.
3. There is no direction, no central command, and the group is entirely decentralized. This is important for maintaining diversity and independence.
4. The group has a mechanism to turn individual opinions into collective opinions. It is not through a central command, but group’s own dynamics.

James Surowiecki is neither first nor the only person to talk about crowd wisdom; many researchers have conducted experiments to show that crowd can generated more wisdom than individuals.

What should we expect in Pakistan?

Let us look at the ‘Herd’ and ‘Mob’ first.

A herd can be best understood by observing a herd of sheep. The most striking feature is that they follow each other and do not show any independence of behavior. The second feature is that one central command, even if weak, can control the entire herd easily. It is common sight to see one small dog controlling a herd of few hundred sheep.

Herd of people is like this. The participants have no independent thinking and are following what the speaker or leader is saying. Political rallies, and religious gatherings are the biggest examples. People are made to get excited about nothing, and the more someone attends these events, the more they lose their independent thinking. All rhetoric by leaders and the resulting exchange by their followers on social media is without logic, and without merit. But the listeners listen and appreciate and believe. All political leaders make tall promises without divulging how they will achieve those, but the herd is happy with announcements only.

People can be herded together through fear also. COVID19 was a classic example where the largest majority herded in many ways. First, they closed everything, then they queued everyone to get vaccine, put on a mask, get tested, and so on. The small number of Anti-vaccine people were also driven by fear though of the other kind. Extreme weathers, floods, earthquakes, wars, immediately convert people into herds.

As you see, the critical difference between crowd and herd is the ability to reason which crowds can do and herds cannot. The next deterioration is Mobs.

Mobs are uncontrolled herds, without logic, without reason, without the ability to express, and without any direction. In the beginning, there are one or more instigators who raise the emotion to very high level and the mob gets started. The hype and chaos is maintained by a few miscreants who make sure the mob does not calm down. They would lead carnage, looting, arson, and ignite large numbers to do the same. Cases of lynching of robbers or criminals or dissidents, are classic mob activities. We see these occasionally whereas these are commonplace in African countries; mob turning on its people. Blasphemy cases run on the same sentiments and the result is predictable.

Sum Up

In present day Pakistan, we are rarely a crowd worth the wisdom associated with this gathering. Mostly, we are a herd in behavior and mentality, and we have the propensity to turn into a mob so very quickly. All ‘dharnas’ by all leaders carried herds with them and kept them there through various means. Stronger leaders kept the herd as herd, weaker leaders lost control and the herd became a mob. There have been so many such instances that we can feel very early when the herd become mob. Herds are favorites of political leaders and military dictators world over because they do not ask questions; they just comply. The so-called civil society, and other institutions and foundations are plagued by the same herd mentality and vision. So far, we do not see any positive change coming up; we do wish that we see it in our life times.

Question: If you are Leader/ Manager, who do you carry? Crowd? Herd? Mob?

Concluded.

Disclaimer: Most pictures in these blogs are taken from Google Images and Pexels. Credit is given where known; some do not show copyright ownership. However, if a claim is lodged at any stage, we shall either mention the ownership clearly, or remove the picture with suitable regrets.

References: https://zenflowchart.com