Herd Behavior
Herd behavior is a term referring to groups of animals, the way they gather together into a mass, and how the mass starts to behave as if it were a single organism with one brain and one will, rather than a collection of individuals that each have its own will and own decision making process. In the past, many believed this behavior came about to benefit the herd or the species. This may be true in some ways and to some extents…mutual protection against predators and the use of collective forage information are two potential herd benefits. But more recently scientists have theorized that herd behavior is driven at least partly by individual self-interest, each in competition with the other herd members. Two behaviors in particular have been called out.
First, gathering into a herd, by itself, does not in fact offer protection against predators…a herd is much more easily found, stalked, hunted and attacked than an individual animal…that is, unless you happen to be occupying the center of the herd, protected by the simple geometry that means the animals at the periphery will be attacked long before (i.e. instead of) you. It is this desire for competitive advantage over one’s neighbors that consolidates the mass of individuals. This makes sense, since without some kind of pull toward the center of the herd, the mass would disperse and dissipate over time. The weaker and less able members of the herd find themselves at the herd’s edges, unable to effectively compete for the coveted inner slots. These individuals, easily located, identified, and picked off by predators thanks to the herd’s large size and aggregation of sight/sound/scent markers, are put at a distinct disadvantage by herd behavior. The herd is in effect self-culling.
Second, the use of and reliance on herd information also demonstrates individual self-interest. The idea is that, by spending less time and energy finding good forage oneself, the individual is better equipped to compete for the best microforage locations once the forage area is reached by relying on information supplied by others. By following the herd rather than conducting individual scouting expeditions, one becomes at least as competitive for forage as the other herd members, if not more so.
These two behaviors, while potentially benefiting some herd members (“survival of the fittest”), can become problematic especially when adopted by a decidedly non-herd animal (Homo sapiens). The competitive predator avoidance behavior relies heavily on the assumption that the predator (or other danger) is limited in its hunting capacities…in other words “they can’t get all of us”. In reality this often isn’t true. And if they indeed can get all of you, you were only making things much easier for your pursuer by gathering yourselves into a big group. Turning to the herd foraging behavior, it relies heavily on the assumption that the herd’s forage information is, well, reliable. In reality this often isn’t true either. If the herd follows itself to a forage area that can’t support the whole population, many individuals could die of starvation or malnutrition, when they would have survived had they spent time and energy up front scouting forage on their own. Those that do survive may well be undernourished and still put in danger by competing heavily for scarce resources in the forage area of the herd’s choosing.
Sometimes when humans exhibit herd behavior, bad things happen…bad for many individuals and bad for the human herd collectively. Stock market bubbles and tourist-trap thieves are just a couple of examples. Maybe the herd isn’t always right. Maybe it’s better to escape the herd sometimes.
Here endeth the lesson on herd behavior.
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