Many years ago I read about an experiment where they took three monkeys and some bananas and put in a cage.
If any of the monkeys touched the banners it would shock the other two monkeys. It didn’t take long for the two monkeys getting shocked to figure out what was going on and attack any monkey that went near the bananas.
A new monkey was added to the group and one of the original three removed. When the new monkey headed for the bananas the other two attacked him. So the new monkey never tried to touch the bananas again. However one of the originals were again removed and replaced by a new monkey.
Now only one of the three remaining monkeys has ever been shocked or even knows what happens when you touch the bananas. Yet the one that doesn’t know why he is not allowed to touch the banners joins in on beating the new monkey for touching the banners.
The test went on and eventually none of the monkeys were the original three, yet none of the monkeys would touch the bananas. They even removed the mechanism that shocks the monkeys but none of those monkeys would touch the bananas and if any one monkey got near the bananas the other two would attack him.
Yep!
Humans are the same way.
We follow and do what the group does, when in a group setting. We look to see what everyone else is doing, to see what is and what is not the correct thing for us to do.
An example, the other day I went to my son’s end of year party. As kids got on stage and sang or performed when one parent started clapping everyone else would join in.
It’s rooted in our DNA, we want to fit in, and we want to belong.
For this reason when people are in a social situation they will look to others to see how to behave. It’s not something we consciously do. We don’t even know were doing it.
There was an experiment where a person went on the street and pretends like they were having a seizure.
They found that if someone approached by themselves there was an 85% chance that the person would stop and help.
However, if there was a crowd of people there was only 35% chance that someone would stop and help.
People looked to see what everyone else was going to do before doing something on their own.
Okay, I know you’re wondering how this applies to your website, let’s say you are standing in a store looking at refrigerators. You are trying to decide between two different refrigerators when I guy stops and said, “I’ve got that refrigerator right there at home and it is the best one I’ve ever used”.
Is that going to sway your decision on which refrigerator to buy?
With an online website people are able to leave reviews about a product or service that they’re receiving. These reviews influence people’s decision.
Don’t believe me?
Do a test for yourself, you’ll find that products with low reviews are totally skipped over by the consumer.
People care what other people think!
