Greetings, folks, everyone jump on the wagon (c’mon, you don’t want to be one of those uncool kids left behind, right? Everyone’s doing it!) for another ride to Logical Fallacies Bootcamp! Today’s installment: The Bandwagon Fallacy!
Also known as the Appeal to Popularity, or argumentum ad populum (Latin for “argument to the people”), the bandwagon fallacy is a claim to the correctness of a position based on popularity. It’s the old “everyone’s doing it / everyone believes it, so why don’t you?” argument. Of course, the problem is that, without other solid evidence to support the position, it is entirely possible that “everyone” is wrong. Or that the popularity is overstated (not that that necessarily increases the likelihood of correctness).
Some examples:
“Everyone’s getting the new iPhone! You should too!”
“Everyone knows that before Columbus, people thought the world was flat!” (The fact is, this myth was propagated by non other than author Washington Irving in a biography of Columbus that would more accurately be considered Historical Fiction today).
“I’m a pepper, he’s a pepper, she’s a pepper, wouldn’t you like to be a pepper too?” (Hope that’s not too obscure for the young’uns out there. If so, watch this and learn the songs of your elders:
As the last example indicates, this is a common device in advertising, to use the (alleged) popularity of a product as a selling point. “We’re the #1 most popular widget of the eastern 1/3 of Niagara County!”.
“100 million copies sold!” or some such is a popular blurb on the cover of books, as another example.
And of course this can have an effect through peer pressure, obviously (“C’mon, have a beer! Everyone else at the party here is drinking!”)
As for political effects, consider how often politicians look at polling for the popularity of positions. Once upon a time, slavery, if we used polls back then, would have polled highly in some parts of the country. Doesn’t make it right then anymore than it is right now. And also, you can also see this effect during things like primaries where a candidate starts to pick up steam, and if they look like a winner, more people will “jump on the bandwagon” to support that candidate so that they gain the so-called “momentum” to get them over the finish line as the candidate of choice, for example.
The Bandwagon Fallacy is fairly pervasive in lots of areas of society: people like to be part of the “in” group. So they fall in with trends, change their beliefs based on what they think the prevailing views are, etc.
But always remember the old saying “What is popular is not always right. What is right is not always popular.” It’s entirely possible that “the people” are right in the majority view. But, as always with these fallacies, the key to think critically and if necessary to investigate the accuracy of the issue — not just “is this popular” but “is this actually correct.”
To close, I’ll just leave you all with “That’s Entertainment!” from the 1953 movie, The Bandwagon, starring Fred Astaire.
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp is a twice weekly series with posts dropping on Wednesdays and Fridays. A companion series, Cognitive Bias Bootcamp, drops on Mondays. If you are new to the series and would like to catch up on past offerings of either, or just want to revisit them, the linked titles are listed below!
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp:
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: The Strawman
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: The Slippery Slope
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: Begging the Question
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: Poisoning the Well
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: No True Scotsman!
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: Ad Hominem
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: False Dilemma
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: Non Sequitur
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp: Red Herring
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp:
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp: Bystander Effect
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp: Curse of Knowledge
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp: Barnum Effect