Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature

by Mark Earls

Individuals do not do what they do largely on their own volition, but through the influence of others. That is the heart of the model of

mass behaviour that this book proposes.

‘Bigger boys made me do it.’

Most of our behaviour is - like the floral cellotaph phenomenon - the result of the influence of other people because we are a super-social species. A herd animal, if you like.

It is not by chance that most people’s experience of psychotherapy is talk about their childhood.

we change our memories, cognitions and beliefs to fit into our existing schema of things. Sometimes we even imagine things that never actually happened . . .