Do people subconsiously flock like birds?

This is one for all those who have worked in the retail industry fo a long time. I have noticed a bizzare pattern over the years. Even on my busy days, there will be long lapses of time where no one comes in and nobody calls and then, blam I will have 15 people in my store and the phone is ringing off the hook. and then it will litterally be dead for the next half hour or so, until the process repeates itself, over and over again. The odd thing is, you would think these patterns would line up with the average work schedule. for example. 7-8am come in before work, noon go out on your lunch break, 5-6pm go after work. This oddly enough is not how this works, my biggest customer rushes all day are at 9:40 AM, 11:20 AM and 3:15 PM. It is truly strange to go from litterally NOBODY, and no phone calls, to twenty to thirty customers at once around these time periods, and then litterally "nothing" again. Are people tied into eachother subliminally and flocking like birds, or has the typical schedule of every human being simply changed? I just find this SO ODD.

Humans are social beings, and, consciously or not, we tend to gather together and herd up. certain clothing, for instance; herd mentality is the ONLY explanation for some of these fashions etc.

ha, yes, i know what you mean. A striking example of it for me was recently I have been watching the times square webcam, and noticed very same pattern, it`s the cam that has the "fridays" sign in it and phone booths on the kerb. One minute there would only be a few people milling around, then there would no room to move on the pavement, and then it would die down again, and the pattern repeats itself frequently. You should check it out to confirm your OP query cam.

I have no answer though, lol, just adding my own observation.

Reminds me of a factoid that people usually go right after entering a store. (or was that left?)

But thanks for telling us, that's interesting actually.

The odd thing is, you would think these patterns would line up with the average work schedule. for example. 7-8am come in before work, noon go out on your lunch break, 5-6pm go after work. This oddly enough is not how this works, my biggest customer rushes all day are at 9:40 AM, 11:20 AM and 3:15 PM.

I could see why those times of day are busy.

9:40 AM: Either mom/dad just got the kids off to school or one of the spouses just left for work around 8 AM...time to work out, shower and go shopping.

11:20 AM: Hit the store before you grab lunch

3:15 PM: Hit the store before kids come home from school or spouse gets home from work. Or it kids could get out of school at 3PM...then go shopping after picking them up.


I'm not saying this is exactly what is happening...but it would make sense to me if it was.

Originally posted by star in a jar
Reminds me of a factoid that people usually go right after entering a store. (or was that left?)

But thanks for telling us, that's interesting actually.

I've heard a similar thing, that's supposedly taught to police/agents, that people in flight, upon hitting a Y junction, will tend to take the same direction.

Something this topic reminds me of is a test that was done in a railway station. Psychologists had noticed that people tended to walk on the same paths around the place, use the same side of the stairs naturally, and so on. They then set up lots of posters with textual messages on them, in order to try and make people take other paths, wait in other places, and so on. It worked.

It may have something to do with why cars on a motorway bunch up and cause traffic jams for no apparent reason.

reply to post by Tykonos


I agree with this statement more than any other. There are times I will get on the freeway, and everyone is going 3-5 miles below the speed limit. Other times the average person is going 5-10 miles above the speed limit. I should have focused on traffic, that is the biggest proof of human flocking.

Originally posted by star in a jar
Reminds me of a factoid that people usually go right after entering a store. (or was that left?)

But thanks for telling us, that's interesting actually.

If you're evading pursuit in a building, searchers tend to turn right and go up. Successful evasion depends on turning left and going downstairs, where possible.

I've also noticed that I can go all day without a single phone call, and then three or four people will call simultaneously, not before lunch or at the end of the day either, like the OP stated.

Sorta like everyone in a room supposedly will get quiet at 20 minutes past the hour.

reply to post by harpsounds


Not to get off topic completely but have you ever done research into Johnny Rotten's family and ancestory. Truly it could be its own thread. and a good one.

Originally posted by Tykonos
It may have something to do with why cars on a motorway bunch up and cause traffic jams for no apparent reason.

If you ever watch sheep run across a pasture, if one jumps over an imaginary object, all the subsequent sheep will tend to jump at the same place since they saw the first one do it.

It happens in traffic too, if someone slows abruptly, or sometimes if there was a wreck or whatnot, even after the obstruction is gone, people will still tend to slow there because they saw it happen at a distance, and they're looking to see why. It'll persist sometimes until there is a big gap in the traffic where no-one sees people hitting the brakes. Sort of a standing wave of behavior.

This thread needs a bump. whoops

When someone in a traffic line all of the 60 m an hour. The front man breaks slightly enough to make his lights go red. the next will break a bit harder and so on.

This has nothing to do with flog mentality and all with people that are to close up the car in front.

I'll bet the flogging in stores is for exact the reason mentioned before.

But people taking the same route is normal flog behavior IMO your fron man looks fine so why not.

[edit on 6/29/2010 by Sinter Klaas]

reply to post by dreamwalker74


Ilya Prigogine had I believe a book (but it might have been an article - years + years ago I read it) about traffic patterns - in the sense of how cars bunch up on the freeway - which might be the same thing you are talking about (or maybe not, maybe just a different interesting problem)...

I can't do justice to Prigogine's take on it offhand...I just remember it was difficult and extremely fun, both...I'll see if I can find the reference then I'll edit it into this post...

OK, back...the first thing I've found along the lines I want is this Wikipedia on two-fluid model ...which is not giving me the name of the book I'm thinking of, hee-hee...but anyways, there is ... a signpost... as it were...

[edit on 29-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]

I just remembered another little related story.

A bridge in London had to be changed, because of a problem with it.

What happened, basically, was people started walking on the bridge, and it started to sway, very very gently, barely, or not conciously noticable. But that very light swaying caused the people walking across to start to move in lock step. The people walking in lockstep caused the bridge to start swaying even more, causing even more people to walk in lockstep. A feedback.

I think that many times people in groups get influenced by alpha males/females, their surroundings, the group in general, and engage in "flock" like behaviour.

en.wikipedia.org...

Another one that many people will know about, is the way that women living in group situations like dorms will start to synchronise their monthly cycles to the dominant female of the group.

All these kind of flock/group behaviours fascinate me. I guess because we are smarter animals, we can pick up on some of them, but we are still animals that engage in them all the time, often unknowingly.

It's not just the times groups of people come in either, it's the things they buy, at least when it comes to food. I've noticed this working in restaurants, especially fast food (maybe it's more obvious there because the fast food menu is so much more limited than a regular restaurant). Working at McDonalds, for example. On an average day, maybe 1 in 30 people would buy a quarter pounder, but one day more like 1 in 5 people would buy one. Every day seemed to have its "in" item that most people bought, which never seemed to have anything to do with local promotions or what day of the week it was. On day might be "1/4-pounder day", another "double fish day", another "chicken club day" and no logical reason for it at all. I've noticed it at almost all the restaurants I've worked at.

Originally posted by dreamwalker74
reply to post by Tykonos

 

I agree with this statement more than any other. There are times I will get on the freeway, and everyone is going 3-5 miles below the speed limit. Other times the average person is going 5-10 miles above the speed limit. I should have focused on traffic, that is the biggest proof of human flocking.

its really bad freeway driving here in san jose....people dont know how to merge and its not uncommon to find someone(usually asian ethnicity) going 35mph on the freeway ramp and the first whole mile of entering the freeway...such a danger