The extraordinary swell in support for Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the Labour party, can’t be explained by speaking to individual voters. When questioned by a pollster or the press, your reason for voting Corbyn will differ from what you tell your friends or your ruminations over Clause Four in bed at 3am. We’ve all seen flocks of starlings suddenly change direction – like birds, fish and herds of animals, humans are also constantly adjusting their behavioural ‘flight path’. This ‘flocking’ phenomenon means we are influenced by those around us to make small, subconscious changes to our opinions and behaviour. Any sudden attempt to pull away from the crowd will itself influence the flock’s movement and may even result in everyone changing direction together.
So Corbyn’s ‘outsider’ status could actually have caused people to flock to his support. In scientific studies of flocks and herds, there’s no real leader, and the direction of the group cannot be predicted by the actions of any individual member – it only really makes sense as a collective movement. Which may be exactly how Corbyn likes it.
Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
