If something gets 5 upvotes, other people that see it are likely to upvote it as well, same goes for downvotes. This directly ties in with “Leaders” and “Followers” Which is the theory that \~10% of people are leaders and \~90% of people are followers. followers are the hive-mind. The reason I criticize the hive-mind is because 1. it’s true. and 2. it’s frankly annoying despite the fact that there’s very little you can actually do about it

But wait, there’s more! There’s an effect in which people will justify a choice they didn’t even make. In MindField S1 E5 (see here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmI7NnMqwLQ&ab\_channel=Vsauce](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmI7NnMqwLQ&ab_channel=Vsauce)(you’ll need Red)) Michael discusses choice, and in part of the video he demonstrates an effect (which the name of I can’t remember) wherein people will justify a choice they didn’t even make about pictures of people. In this experiment, Michael showed subjects 2 pictures of different people and asked which they preferred and did this with 16 pictures. for 4 of the pairs, he would switch which decision they chose, and instead of them saying (no I chose the other one) or not saying anything, They justify the reasoning they didn’t even make.

This all ties together because the leader upvotes/downvotes, you then follow the leader, and then when questioned you will provide your own reasoning, despite the fact that you would’ve done the same had the leader chosen the opposite arrow

Also here’s a full list of every single cognitive bias you, me, and everybody else has but do very little about: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_cognitive\_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)