Bandwagon Behavior Research Articles

Modeling undecided voters to forecast elections: From bandwagon behavior and the spiral of silence perspective

Forecasting election results has been a highly attractive activity among political and social scientists. Different forecasting methods have been proposed, but those based on public opinion polls are the most common. However, there are challenges to using opinion polls, especially because they neglect undecided voters. Due to the significant number of undecided participants and their impact on voting outcomes, we analyze the potential behavior of undecided voters by considering opinion polls and sentiment based on voter expectation from the perspective of the bandwagon effect and the spiral of silence. We establish a hierarchical Bayesian forecasting model to predict voting results, and apply it to the 2016 United States presidential election and the 2016 Brexit referendum. The results of our model suggest that voting outcomes are more predictable when fully utilizing the impact of undecided voters. The results indicate that integrating aggregated polls into the hierarchical Bayesian framework is a strong predictor for forecasting outcomes, and they provide evidence for the influence of sentiment based on voter expectation in forecasting election results.

Mental health discourse and social media: Which mechanisms of cultural power drive discourse on Twitter.

The global burden of mental health disorders has increased steadily during the past decade. Today, mental illness is the leading cause of total years lived with disability. At the same time, global mental health policies and budgets fall short of addressing the societal burden as mental health discourse languishes in the shadows due to stigma. As social media have become an increasingly popular source of information, they create opportunities as well as threats for mental health discourse. On the one hand, social media can help to bring awareness to stigmatized topics as they give marginalized members of society the possibility to share experiences and voice their discontent. On the other hand, mental health discourse on social media may lead to stigmatization. To date, little is known about social media mental health discourse and what drives it. This study addresses these research gaps by (1) mapping the mental health discourse on Twitter and (2) analyzing mechanisms of cultural power through which some mental health topics take prevalence over the others. Drawing on Twitter data, this research employs innovative methods of topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and panel data regression analyses. Theoretically, it combines, in a multidisciplinary fashion, concepts such as emotional energy and cognitive focus from sociology and bandwagon behavior from economics. Our findings show that low-cost attention mechanisms are ineffective in fostering online mental health discourse, whereas emotional energy and discursive variability have a positive influence by engaging audiences, creating online solidarity, and speaking to worldviews of audiences from different walks of life. Social media mental health discourse is also shown to be quite diverse and more stigma-neutral than such discourse in traditional media.

Intertemporal asset pricing with bitcoin

This paper develops and tests an intertemporal regime-switching asset pricing model characterized by heterogeneous agents that have different expectations about the persistence and volatility of bitcoin prices. The model is estimated using daily bitcoin price data from 2013 until 2020 whereby three types of agents are considered: mean–variance optimizers, speculators and fundamentalists, respectively. While mean–variance optimizers trade on the basis of conditional first and second moments of the return distribution, speculators engage in trend chasing and buy when prices are rising and sell when prices are declining. Fundamentalists trade on the basis of fundamental factors that can impact the value of bitcoin. The fractions of agents engaging in one strategy over another shows statistically substantial variation during high and low bitcoin price volatility regimes. Estimation results reveal the following. First, unlike in traditional asset classes, there is evidence of mean–variance optimizers. Second, there is evidence of speculators who engage in ‘bandwagon behavior’ and buy bitcoins during price appreciations and sell bitcoins during price declines. Finally, there is evidence of fundamentalists who trade bitcoins when fundamental factors deviate from their long-run trends. Remarkably, these fundamentalists exhibit contrarian-type behaviors during low price volatility regimes while behaving more like fundamental traders during high price volatility regimes.

Bergayuh Agar Tak Lumpuh: Proyeksi Peran ASEAN dalam Penyelesaian Isu Semenanjung Korea

As a regional organization, ASEAN has responsibility to solve the problem in Korean Peninsula. ASEAN’s involvement in effort to solve the problem in Korean Peninsula can be seen by the existence of ARF. Besides ARF, ASEAN also has many cooperations with other parties-involved that can be exploited as an instrument to solve the problem. However, ASEAN’s involvement only limited to the providing forum (ARF) for the parties involved in the problem. The limitation of ASEAN is interesting to discuss since it proved to be fail to provide concrete outcome. This writtings try to find the reasons behind the inability of ASEAN to solve the problem. Specifically, this writtings use the concept of bandwagon to analyse the cause of the limitation. The main argument of this writing is the inability of ASEAN is caused by bandwagon behavior of ASEAN countries to great power that involved in this problem.Keywords: ASEAN, Korean Peninsula, bandwagon

Sellouts, Beliefs, and Bandwagon Behavior

AbstractThis paper examines how a firm can strategically use sellouts to influence consumers’ beliefs about its product’s popularity. A monopolist faces a market of conformist consumers, whose willingness to pay is increasing in their beliefs about aggregate demand. Consumers are broadly rational but have limited strategic reasoning about the firm’s incentives. Formally, I apply the concept of a ‘cursed equilibrium’, where consumers neglect how the firm’s chosen actions might be correlated with its private information about demand. I show that in a dynamic setting, the firm may choose its price and capacity so as to generate sellouts, specifically to exploit consumers’ limited reasoning. It does so to effectively conceal unfavorable information from consumers about past demand in a way that increases future profits. Sellouts tend to occur when demand is low, rather than high, and may be accompanied by introductory pricing. The analysis also demonstrates that the firm’s ability to mislead some consumers always benefits certain others, and can result in higher overall consumer surplus.

What motivates bandwagon voting behavior: Altruism or a desire to win?

This paper surveys the literature on psychological and strategic mental processes of bandwagon behavior, discusses the literature of bandwagon behavior in the context of the two different types, bandwagon vote choices and bandwagon abstention effects, and examines the rationality of other-regarding bandwagon vote choices. Key experimental results are reported to investigate the extent that bandwagon behavior can be explained by other-regarding preferences in contrast to a psychological desire to simply support a winner. We find support for purely psychological non-other-regarding bandwagon behavior but primarily when subjects have information about the distribution of voter choices in previous elections but individual choices are private. Interestingly, when voting is public this type of bandwagon behavior disappears and bandwagon behavior that could be other-regrading is much higher. Given that observability increases other-regarding behavior in other contexts, our results suggest that some of the observed bandwagon behavior may be explained by other-regarding preferences as well.

The Timing of Capacity Investment with Lead Times: When Do Firms Act in Unison?

We study competitive capacity investment for the emergence of a new market. Firms may invest either in capacity leading demand or in capacity lagging demand at different costs. We show how the lead time and other operational factors including volume flexibility, existing capacity, and demand uncertainty impact equilibrium outcomes. Our results indicate that a type of bandwagon behavior is the most likely equilibrium outcome: if both firms are going to invest, then they are most likely to act in unison. Contrary to much received wisdom, we show that leader–follower behavior is very uncommon in equilibrium where firms do not have volume flexibility, and will not occur at all if lead times are sufficiently short. On the other hand, if there is volume flexibility in production, then the likelihood of this sequential investment behavior increases. Our findings underscore the importance of operational characteristics in determining the competitive dynamics of capacity investment timing.

The Efficiency of Exchange Rate Market: A Case Study on Pakistan

This study investigates the efficiency of foreign exchange market in Pakistan. Based on monthly data during the period of July 2000 to October 2012 for 13 currencies against the Pak Rupee, three techniques of regression analysis are applied. The result of regression on trended data portrayed that unbiased hypothesis does not hold in the exchange rate market owing to serial correlation and non-stationary time-series data. The regression analysis with de-trended data remarked exchange rate market of Pakistan is neither efficient nor speculative. The findings of regression analysis with orthogonality experiment explored incidence of bandwagon behavior in selected currencies. The results of this study suggested that concerned authorities should reinforce information dissemination procedure and regulate unofficial currency markets activities for maintaining the efficiency of foreign exchange market in Pakistan.

Organizational decision-maker bias supports merger wave formation: demonstration with logical formalization

Imitation of firms that opt for strategic reorganizations by opting for mergers and acquisitions facilitates market wave formation. Empirical evidence on mergers and acquisitions suggests that, under uncertainty, firms regret more not following their rivals’ merger moves of yet unknown outcome than possibly failing jointly by copying them. Looking for the rationale for this bandwagon behavior, we explore the underlying decision-making framework by using formal logic and search for behavioral premises consistent with the observed outcomes. We point out three biased expectations, modeled by using a belief modal operator, that filter out relevant scenarios from the consideration set of otherwise rationally behaving decision-makers. The theorems derived from the logic model highlight the drive to imitate competitors’ merger choices for all but one of the eight possible outcomes of the decision-making framework. For the latter case, a boundary condition is given that makes imitation the predicted strategy. Our approach goes against the view that human behavior defies logic-based rendering also if such behavior can be adequately described as non-rational in an economic sense. Logic is a flexible representation tool to model even faulty behavior patterns in a transparent way; it can also help exploring the consequences of the cognitive mistakes made. Our findings suggest that threats to wealth creation may not necessarily find their origins in morally questionable organizational behavior, but rather in modalities of decision-making under uncertainty.

Sellouts, Beliefs, and Bandwagon Behavior

This paper examines how a firm can strategically use sellouts to influence beliefs about its good's popularity. A monopolist faces a market of conformist consumers, whose willingness to pay is increasing in their beliefs about aggregate demand. Consumers are broadly rational but have limited strategic reasoning about the firm's incentives. I show that in a dynamic setting, the firm can use current sellouts to mislead consumers about future demand and increase future profits. Sellouts tend to occur when demand is low, they are accompanied by introductory pricing, and certain consumers benefit from others being misled.

Outsourcing Failure and Reintegration: The Influence of Contractual and External Factors

This paper discusses the reasons that drive organizations to interrupt outsourcing, reverse their previous decision, and then reintegrate activities formerly delegated to providers. Contractual approaches, mainly derived from Transaction Costs Economics, offer some plausible explanations for reintegration originating from outsourcing failure. These explanations are mainly related to asset specificity, poor contractual design, and deficient monitoring. The study of a real case of outsourcing interruption in industrial maintenance illustrates these different factors. However, some other determinants might complement the contractual and strategic background, namely bandwagon behavior and institutional pressure exerted by external actors. Finally, we propose an integrative framework that combines micro- and macro- levels of organizational analysis. We argue that some existing complementarities between the different theories we use here can shed some light on real organizational problems. Besides the implications for theory, our work can help managers to understand the dynamics of organizational boundaries, thus allowing them to make better choices in both outsourcing and reintegration decisions.

Social information and bandwagon behavior in voting: An economic experiment

We present the first economic experiment on bandwagon behavior in voting. Subjects are given an individual endowment and vote by majority rule to either keep the endowment for private use or to donate it to a non-governmental organization. In our experiment, participants are divided at random in two treatments. Individuals in both treatments are provided with true yet diverging information regarding the approval rates observed in previous experimental sessions. Our results show that the voting behavior differs across treatments in a way that is consistent with bandwagon voting. They also confirm the importance of instrumental motives and – unlike the majority of previous experiments – find support for expressive voting motives. Finally, we assess the impact of the false-consensus effect from a theoretical perspective. We show that it has the potential to change voter behavior if it results from an anchoring bias and voters follow non-instrumental motives.

Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation and Evolution

While recent research has demonstrated the impact of online product ratings and reviews on product sales, we still have a limited understanding of the individual’s decision to contribute these opinions. In this research, we empirically model the individual’s decision to provide a product rating and investigate factors that influence this decision. Specifically, we consider how previously posted opinions in a ratings environment may affect a subsequent individual’s posting behavior, both in terms of whether to contribute (incidence) and what to contribute (evaluation), and identify selection effects that influence the incidence decision and adjustment effects that influence the evaluation decision. Our results indicate that individuals vary in their underlying behavior and in their reactions to previously posted product ratings. While less frequent posters exhibit bandwagon behavior, more active customers reveal differentiation behavior when posting online opinions. Systematic patterns in these behaviors have important implications for the evolution of online product opinions, which we illustrate through the use of simulations. Our simulations also show that posted product opinions can be affected substantially by the composition of the underlying customer base. Specifically, when a product’s customers are polarized, posted opinions are more negative and exhibit a stronger downward trend when compared to a homogeneous, neutral customer base with the same median opinion. This is a result of a core group of “activist” customers posting increasingly negative opinions in an effort to differentiate themselves from others in the community.

Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation, and Evolution

Whereas recent research has demonstrated the impact of online product ratings and reviews on product sales, we still have a limited understanding of the individual's decision to contribute these opinions. In this research, we empirically model the individual's decision to provide a product rating and investigate factors that influence this decision. Specifically, we consider how previously posted ratings may affect an individual's posting behavior in terms of whether to contribute (incidence) and what to contribute (evaluation), and we identify selection effects that influence the incidence decision and adjustment effects that influence the evaluation decision. Across individuals, our results show that positive ratings environments increase posting incidence, whereas negative ratings environments discourage posting. Our results also indicate important differences across individuals in how they respond to previously posted ratings, with less frequent posters exhibiting bandwagon behavior and more active customers revealing differentiation behavior. These dynamics affect the evolution of online product opinions. Through simulations, we illustrate how the evolution of posted product opinions is shaped by the underlying customer base and show that customer bases with the same median opinion may evolve in substantially different ways because of the presence of a core group of “activists” posting increasingly negative opinions.

Termination-discriminatory pricing, subscriber bandwagons, and network traffic patterns: the Taiwanese mobile phone market

This article studies network effects induced by termination-based price discrimination in the evolving Taiwan mobile phone market. An econometric model that estimates the effects attests to the formation of bandwagon behavior among network subscribers. It is shown that networks with a large subscriber base will recruit a disproportionately greater share of new users ceteris paribus compared with low-penetration operators. The strength of the subscriber bandwagon varies closely with the price differential of intra- and inter-network calls. Also, analysis of network traffic reveals that an average mobile phone user consumes considerably less inter-network than intra-network airtime; consequently, mobile phone use is largely clustered within respective networks and hindered from traversing others.

Corporate governance, investment bandwagons and overcapacity: an analysis of the worldwide petrochemical industry, 1975–95

AbstractPrevious research has provided conflicting arguments and evidence on which corporate governance system—bank based or market based—is better in preventing managers from investing in value‐destroying projects. This paper attempts to further the debate by comparing the effect of these different corporate governance systems on preventing capacity expansion bandwagon behavior in the worldwide petrochemical industry in the period 1975–95. Our study shows, first, that neither system is particularly effective in curbing overinvestment; however, the market‐based system seems to be less ineffective than the bank‐based system. Second, free cash flow appears to drive greater bandwagon behavior in the market‐based system than in the bank‐based system. Finally, within the bank‐based system, companies that rely on one bank–shareholder are more likely to join the bandwagon than those with more than one. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Psychology of Political Momentum

In this article we examine the psychological processes that lead people to display bandwagon behavior. Next, we test these theories against the momentum that got rolling for George Bush in the 1988 presidential prenomination campaign. The NES Super Tuesday panel data from that year provide the necessary data. Our results suggest that individuals switched to Bush for a variety of reasons. Some got caught up in the excitement of the momentum and threw their support to the vice president uncritically. Others backed him because they liked the feeling of supporting the favorite Still others reluctantly switched to him even though they liked another can didate better because they felt Bush had the nomination locked up. Finally, some people joined in the momentum because they became convinced that Bush had the best chance of carrying the Republicans to victory in November.

The Voting Decision: Instrumental and Expressive Aspects

O F ALL POSSIBLE POLITICAL ACTIONS the voting decision has received the most attention from behavioral political scientists. Probably we have compiled and analyzed more data on candidate choice and turnout than on any other form of political behavior. Of course, this heavy emphasis comes as no surprise. The voting act is the fundamental political act in a democracy. It is the most widespread political act. Furthermore, on the surface, at least, the voting act would appear to be one of the simplest (and therefore, most understandable) political acts. A heavy scholarly focus on the voting act follows naturally from these considerations. While our data base expands, however, our theoretical superstructure remains far from finished. It is fair to say that political science has relied chiefly on models rooted in the sociological, and later the social-psychological tradition.' These models hold that