4

On August 30, 2016, Anonymous posted a "quite disturbing" video of a young woman caving in to herd behavior by standing up whenever a random beep was heard in the waiting area of an eye exam office ("Xenia eye clinic"). The video went viral on Facebook, with 78M views (though surprisingly, not on YouTube).

While this experiment is similar to the monkeys ladder experiment, the video is probably staged, though it features Dr. Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, expert on social influence.

What is the source of this video sequence, obviously cut from a longer feature, and to what degree was it staged?

Hidden camera social experiment proves most people are sheep

14
  • 5
    This question jumps around a bit, and I am trying to work out how to clean it up to focus on an actual claim. The title "Most people are sheep" is meaningless, and should be changed. If the question is "Where is this from?" that's more a Movies & TV Stack Exchange trivia question than a Skeptics.SE question. (Answer: Brain Games, S05E08).
    – Oddthinking
    Nov 22, 2016 at 10:19
  • 10
    I am skeptical that the conclusion "Most people are sheep" can be drawn from that experiment. Most people are socially smart and adjust their behavior, or mirror other peoples' behavior to fit in. That would be my conclusion.
    – daraos
    Nov 22, 2016 at 11:02
  • 3
    @daraos mirror other peoples' behavior to fit in and how that is different from "being sheep"?
    – Federico
    Nov 22, 2016 at 11:41
  • 4
    @Federico I think daraos' point is that, especially in this case, what is the harm? This proves nothing on a grand scale and makes zero connections, maybe the target woman was having fun and enjoying herself. My impression is, even if it wasn't staged, there really isn't that much of a point to the video besides marketing. Nov 22, 2016 at 17:20
  • 4
    @Federico Sheep can be led to literal slaughter. If adjusting to social norms was "being a sheep" then mama was right: I would jump off a bridge if everyone else did.
    – user11643
    Nov 23, 2016 at 9:54

0

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .