the electoral meme machine

While we criticize people for "jumping on the bandwagon," sociology says they may not have much of a choice...

Ryan Grim at the Politico recently wrote an article about the "bandwagon effect," a well known phenomena at election time in which voters will decide to vote for the winning candidate just because the candidate is winning. Some political pundits (amateur and professional) say that the very idea is demeaning to voters who travel to the polls to vote their heart and soul. Grim acknowledges the criticism and offers a reference to academia:

Academics who have spent years researching the nexus of polling and voter behavior say that it takes a change in poll numbers to get voters jumping on board — or at least thinking about it. If the tide turns toward a candidate, persuadable — but previously unpersuaded — voters begin to ask what they've been missing.

So is there any solid science behind the bandwagon effect? Actually yes. As all social mammals, humans jump on bandwagons all the time. Even though we're organized into nations, cultures and sub-cultures, we still follow strong memes, or social cues. We have bestselling books and blockbusters that everyone seems to have seen, hit TV shows, religions and fashion styles. We look to social groups around us and generally try to fit in, one of the basic behaviors of social creatures according to evolutionary biology. Going by memes allows them to work together to find food, build shelters, defend each other or attack their enemies. The same behaviors allow us to work as societies.

It makes perfect sense that when a candidate seems to be gaining plenty of ground and a tidal wave of support behind him, people consider following the meme and do what so many others seem to be doing. It's the evolutionary drive to try and fit in. Of course with us, it's a little more complicated than that. We might have a different meme from our friends, family and the other people around us. But overall, the drive to do what others do is still deeply embedded in us and it's logical that it will manifest itself in politics, one of the biggest exercises in social memes we have.