Information cascade
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Informational (or information) cascades happen when Internet users start passing on information they assume to be true, but cannot know to be true, based on information on what other users are doing. Information cascades can be accelerated by search engines' ranking technologies and their tendency to return results relevant to a user's previous interests. This type of information spreading is hard to stop. Information cascades over social media and the Internet may also be harmless, and may contain truthful information.
An information cascade is generally accepted as a two-step process. For a cascade to begin an individual must encounter a scenario with a decision, typically a binary one. Second, outside factors can influence this decision (typically, through the observation of actions and their outcomes of other individuals in similar scenarios). Due to this influence, researchers have drawn comparisons between information cascades and herd behavior.
See also
- Asch conformity experiments
- Conformity
- Groupthink
- Group polarization
- Herd behavior
- Sheeple
- Social proof
- Woozle effect
- Other modelling approaches
