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WORK TITLE: Copycats and Contrarians
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BIRTHDATE: 1965
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COUNTRY: Australia
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tel +61 8 830 21629
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1965.
EDUCATION:Queensland University, B.A., B.Ec.; University of Cambridge, M.Phil., Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, editor, economist, and educator. University of South Australia, research professor at the Institute for Choice in Sydney, Australia. Previously, all at University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, cadet, research officer/economist, State and Local Government Finances branch, Fiscal Policy Division, 1989-91; postdoctoral research associate, Liverhulme Trust – EU Regional Unemployment, 1995-97; fellow/ college lecturer and tutor Gonville & Caius College Faculty of Economics, 1995-2013; deputy director of Cambridge Centre for Economic & Public Policy, 2003-05; professor in economics and finance, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, 2013-17, then honorary professor. Work-related activists include Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee, United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2012-16; and associate fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy.
MEMBER:American Economic Association, Economic Society of Australia, International Association for Research in Economic Psychology, Royal Economic Society, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (advisory board), International Confederation for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics and Economic Psychology (advisory board).
WRITINGS
Editorial board member for the Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy and the Journal of Cyber Security; member of the executive committee/editorial board for the Economic and Labour Relations Review.
SIDELIGHTS
Michelle Baddeley is an economist whose early research focused on the use of econometric tools to explore a range of applied economic issues including unemployment, housing market instability, structural change and regional convergence. Overall, Baddeley explores links between economics, psychology, and sociology. Her research focuses on applying insights from macroeconomics and behavioural economics across a range of contexts, including investment analysis, neuroeconomics, labour markets, housing, cybersecurity, migration/refugees, energy and the environment. Baddeley specialises in the analysis of herding and social influence applied to these and other themes.
Among Baddeley’s books is Copycats and Contrarians: Why We Follow Others … and When We Don’t. The book examines contexts in which behavior is driven by people’s tendency to herd, follow, and imitate others. Drawing from various disciplines, including social, behavioral, and natural sciences, Baddeley analyzes rational versus non rational and cognitive versus emotional forces involved in herding and why herding can work out well at times.
“Michelle Baddeley suggests, there are many circumstances where following the herd is the smart option, because it saves you the bother of decision-making from scratch,” wrote Guardian Online contributor Kathryn Hughes. One example of of such positive herding is the idea of looking for a commonly used appliance. Instead of doing a lot of research that takes up time, a person could just buy the same kind of appliance that most of the neighbors have, assuming that the neighbors have already done the research to pick the best product.
In other cases, the herding instinct may not work out so well. According to Baddeley, herding becomes problematic when people follow herd behavior too much. “What starts as a rational decision to tap into the wisdom of crowds can atrophy into the sluggish habit of least resistance,” noted Guardian Online contributor Hughes. As a result, according to Baddeley, following the herd too much can stifle contrarians who can come up with new ideas that may allow people to do things better. Baddeley delves into distinct models of social herding that demonstrate the rational thinking self-interested kind versus the lazy go with the flow sort of herding.
While herding instincts may be common in nature, including people, Baddeley points out that some people choose to stand alone, that is, intentionally be different or contrarian. She writes about modern advances in neuroscience that are providing insights into peoples’ motives via MRI scanners. These scans can show the parts of the brain that activate when people are asked to make decisions to go with a group or stick to their own idea of what should be done. According to Baddeley, neuroscience research has shown two specific types of herding instinct. One type of herding instinct is a direct result of a cognitive function that stimulates the brain’s areas that are associated with slow but steady thinking. The other draws on emotion and reveals a major stimulation of the brain’s amygdala. Newer research has shown that the anterior cingulate cortex serves as a mediator between these two approaches to making decisions as it attempts to incorporate the best aspects of both types of thinking.
Baddeley writes that, in her opinion, the best type of decision making would be mostly made up of a rational approach “with a with a tiny bit of gut instinct to keep us on the right track,” as noted by Hughes in the review for the Guardian Online. Baddeley writes that neither conformity or rebellion is inherently correct or good and that research into these two ways of thinking can answer important questions concerning the origin of contrarian or copycat instincts and how contrarians and conformists interact. She also addresses the issue of how well copycat or contrarian instincts equip people to be successful in the modern world. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted the “easy-to-understand prose, replete with accessible anecdotes.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly May 28, 2018, review of Copycats and Contrarians: Why We Follow Others … and When We Don’t, p. 87.
ONLINE
Conversation, https://theconversation.com/ (August 28, 2018), “Michelle Baddeley.”
Guardian Online, https://www.theguardian.com/ (July 25, 2018), Kathryn Hughes, “Copycats and Contrarians Review – Should We Follow the Herd?”
Popular Science Books, http://popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/ (June 8, 2018), review of Copycats and Contrarians
University of Cambridge Center for Science and Policy website, http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/ (August 28, 2018), author faculty profile.
University of South Australia website, http://people.unisa.edu.au/ (August 28, 2018), author faculty profile.
About me
Michelle Baddeley is a Research Professor at the Institute for Choice (I4C), University of South Australia and an Honorary Professor, University College London. She arrived at I4C from a professorship in the Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at University College London. Before that she was Director of Studies (Economics) and Fellow at Gonville & Caius College, and lecturer for the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge UK. She has a BA (Psychology) and Bachelor of Economics (First Class Honours) from the University of Queensland, and an MPhil/PhD (Economics) from University of Cambridge. Her research focusses on applying insights from macroeconomics and behavioural economics across a range of contexts, including investment analysis, neuroeconomics, labour markets, housing, cybersecurity, migration/refugees, energy and the environment. She specialises in the analysis of herding and social influence applied to these and other themes. She is on Editorial Boards for the Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy and the Journal of Cyber Security, and the Executive Committee/Editorial Board of the Economic and Labour Relations Review. She is on the Advisory Boards for the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics and the International Confederation for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics and Economic Psychology. She has an active interest in public policy: she was a publicly-appointed member of the Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee - hosted by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2012-2016); and is an Associate Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy. She has participated as a research investigator on a number of funded research projects - the main ones being the ESRC grant RELIEF: Refugees, Education, Learning, Information Technology and Entrepreneurship for the Future (2017-2022), the EPSRC grant 'Deterrence of Deception in Socio-Technical Systems (2013-2016), and as the Principal Investigator for the Leverhulme Trust Project 'Neuroeconomic Analyses of Herding in Economics and Finance' (2006-2010).
Professional Associations
American Economic Association
Economic Society of Australia
International Association for Research in Economic Psychology
Royal Economic Society
In the media
Date Title
20/10/2017
Infrastructure: The Roads to Recovery?, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z728w
19/05/2017
Why we herd and how it can harm us, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/why-we-herd-and-how-it-can-harm-us/8536620
17/05/2017
Behavioural Economics, https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-talk-business/id605799641?mt=2
01/02/2017
Michelle Baddeley on the Herd, https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2017/02/michelle-baddeley-herd/
03/10/2016
Is government spending on roads and railways a good idea?, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37542996
02/12/2015
An Introduction to Policy Making , http://www.cuspe.org/podcast/2754/
06/05/2015
The Big Question on… housing, http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/general-election/2015/05/06/big-question-on-housing/
Experience
Qualifications
Doctor of Philosophy University of Cambridge
Master of Philosophy (Economics) University of Cambridge
Bachelor of Economics University of Queensland
Work history
2013 - 2017, Professor in Economics and Finance, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London
1995 - 2013, Fellow/College Lecturer/Tutor, Gonville & Caius College/Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, UK
2003 -2005, Deputy Director, Cambridge Centre for Economic & Public Policy, University of Cambridge
1995 - 1997, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Leverhulme Trust - EU Regional Unemployment, University of Cambridge
1989 - 1991, Cadet, Research Officer/Economist, State and Local Government Finances branch, Fiscal Policy Division
Michelle Baddeley
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Research Professor at the Institute for Choice, University of South Australia
ProfileArticlesActivity
Michelle Baddeley is a Research Professor at the Institute for Choice, University of South Australia. She arrived at I4C from a professorship in the Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at University College London and before that was Director of Studies (Economics) and Fellow at Gonville & Caius College and the Faculty of Economics, Cambridge UK. She has undergraduate degrees in Economics and Psychology from University of Queensland, and an MPhil/PhD (Economics) from University of Cambridge.
Her research interests include behavioural economics and finance, neuroeconomics, housing, cybersecurity, and energy – and she specialises in the analysis of herding and social influence applied to these and other themes. She is on editorial boards for the Journal of Behavioral Economics and Policy, the Journal of Cyber Security, the American Review of Political Economy, as well as the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE)’s Advisory Board. She has an active interest in public policy and was a member of the Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee, hosted by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and is an Associate Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy.
Experience
–present Research Professor at the Institute for Choice, University of South Australia
Professor Michelle Baddeley
Professor in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at University College London (UCL)
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Professor in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment, University College London (UCL)
Michelle Baddeley is Professor in the Economics and Finance of the Built Environment, based at the UCL Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management. Before that, she was Director of Studies (Economics) at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge. She was also a Faculty Research Fellow at the Faculty of Economics (2010-13), and the Deputy Director of the Cambridge Centre for Economic and Public Policy (2003-05). She is continuing as an Associate Researcher with the Electricity Policy Research Group (EPRG), based at the Judge Business School, Cambridge.
Michelle has undergraduate degrees from the University of Queensland, Australia including a BA in Psychology and a Bachelor of Economics (First Class Honours). After graduating with her undergraduate degrees, she worked in Canberra as an economist with the Australian Commonwealth Treasury (Fiscal Policy Division). She then went to the Faculty of Economics and Politics, Cambridge where she completed her MPhil and PhD in Economics (supervised by Geoff Harcourt).
Michelle's early research focussed on the use of econometric tools to explore a range of applied economic issues including unemployment, housing market instability, structural change and regional convergence. She explores links between economics, psychology and sociology and is currently applying these themes to a range of topics related to energy and the environment, online privacy and security, and also to the management of complex infrastructure projects. In collaboration with neuroscientists, she has used experimental and neuroscientific techniques to analyse links between personality/emotions and herding/social influence. Other experimental analyses have shown social influences affecting housing markets and jury deliberations. Her books includeBehavioural Economics and Finance (2013), Running Regressions - A Practical Guide to Quantitative Research (2007) and Investment: Theories and Analysis (2003). She has published in a wide range of peer-reviewed journals and is a regular book reviewer for the Times Higher Education Supplement. She was the Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Trust project "Neuroeconomic Analyses of Herding in Economics and Finance". She has also been an investigator on a number of other research projects, including projects funded by the ESRC/MRC, EPSRC and the Newton Trust, Cambridge - most recently the EPSRC-funded project "Deterrence of Deception in Socio-Technical Systems", a collaboration between UCL, Cambridge, Newcastle and Portsmouth starting in October 2013.
Current research projects focus on a range of issues connected to energy and the environment, the application of insights from behavioural economics and information economics to the analysis of infrastructure supply chains, and the development of behavioural macroeconomic models. She has a keen interest in linking academic research to real-world policy design and is on advisory boards for the Knowledge Transfer Network (Financial Services), the Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee (managed via DEFRA) and the ESRC's Large Centres and Grants Peer Review Panel 2013/14.
Economics
http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/teach/baddeley/
Neuroscience
http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?mb150
Copycats and Contrarians: Why We Follow Others ... and When We Don't
Publishers Weekly. 265.22 (May 28, 2018): p87+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Copycats and Contrarians: Why We Follow Others ... and When We Don't
Michelle Baddeley. Yale Univ., $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-300-22022-3
Economics professor Baddeley employs a multidisciplinary approach to tackling a key question about human behavior--why do some people go with the flow, and others buck societal conventions? In easy-to-understand prose, replete with accessible anecdotes (Baddeley opens with the mass outpouring of grief following the death of Princess Diana as an illustration of people's "strong instincts to copy and conform"), she examines how economists, such as Italian polymath Vilfredo Pareto, "link their assumptions about our capacity for rational choice with human social behavior." But she moves beyond economics to incorporate recent discoveries in neuroscience and psychology, arriving at nuanced answers; for example, not all conformity is bad, and there are "rational reasons to ... look to the group, to copy and to herd." Baddeley is a forceful advocate for the value of contrarians, and urges societies to make it easier for their members to take risks in advancing new ideas or theories. Her observations on how both risk-taking and conformism contributed to Donald Trump's election, and on how social media affects "copycats," make for a well-timed and valuable study. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Copycats and Contrarians: Why We Follow Others ... and When We Don't." Publishers Weekly, 28 May 2018, p. 87+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541638850/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9bcb3422. Accessed 13 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541638850
Copycats and Contrarians - Michelle Baddeley **
June 08, 2018
I think what Michelle Baddeley is trying to do with this book (or more likely the publisher with its positioning) is to recreate the success of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, and it may have been possible with this topic - but this is certainly not the book to do it. Various recommendations describe this as a 'tremendous read' and tell us that Baddeley has 'terrific writing skills' - but I have to be a contrarian: I found Copycats and Contrarians almost unreadable.
The concept is simple - that there are two significant behaviours: going along with the herd and standing out and being different. Each has advantages in different circumstances, though it can be difficult to know if following the herd, for example, is a good or bad thing in a particular circumstance. And, Baddeley suggests (contrary to David Sumpter in Outnumbered), our social media bubbles turn us too much to herd behaviour and keep out the contrarians who could change things for the better.
All this sounds very interesting, and I think it could have been. However, there are three significant problems with the book. The first is that it sometimes feels more like a business book, with their typical approach of having a few points made over and over again, than it does a science book. Secondly it's very weak on narrative. When Baddeley does built in some kind of story - for example, describing a specific experiment - things pick up. But all too often what we get is just a collection of facts, theories and opinions. And, finally, what science there is tends not to be given enough of a detailed treatment. There is relatively little content with a proper scientific basis (even Freud gets a look in without real criticism) and where studies are mentioned there is nothing about, for example, whether the sample size is big enough to draw any significant conclusions.
I came away from the book with very little insight beyond the second paragraph above. It just didn't work for me.
Copycats and Contrarians review – should we follow the herd?
What’s behind our tendency to go with the crowd, sensible thinking or emotion? And what are its dangers?
Kathryn Hughes
Wed 25 Jul 2018 06.59 EDT
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A northern quoll
Constructive behaviours … a northern quoll. Photograph: University of Technology Sydney/PR IMAGE
No one likes to think of themselves as one of life’s sheep. And yet, Michelle Baddeley suggests, there are many circumstances where following the herd is the smart option, because it saves you the bother of decision-making from scratch. Say you’re after a new fridge freezer. Instead of exhaustively researching the topic, you could just buy the one that everyone in your street has got. Chances are that your neighbours have done all the grunt work of comparing thermostats and drip trays and you can simply benefit from their expertise. The time you save could be more usefully employed in learning Mandarin or cooking delicious midweek dinners.
What’s being enacted here, she explains, is the sort of self-interested herding you see in nature. We’re not just talking obvious stuff, such as meerkats taking it in turns to do sentry duty or lionesses approaching their lunch like a well-drilled first XI. Baddeley digs deeper to report on some well-I-never moments in behavioural ecology. Take the quoll, a small Australian marsupial that until recently was under threat from the cane toad. It wasn’t that the toads were aggressive to them, rather they presented the fatal threat of being both toothsome and toxic.
What starts as a rational decision to tap into the wisdom of crowds can atrophy into the sluggish habit of least resistance
To steer the marsupials away from certain death, a form of aversion therapy was tried in which small groups were served toad meat laced with a harmless chemical that made them sick. They were then released back into the wild, whereupon they taught their offspring to lay off the toads if they wanted to hold on to their lunch. Friends and family copied these constructive behaviours, which quickly spread throughout the population. Thanks to their shameless copycatting, the quoll is now back from the brink and flourishing throughout Australia.
If quolls went in for “best practice” this would be it – harnessing group instinct to save both the one and the many. The problem, as Baddeley is the first to admit, is that humans are not always as clever as marsupials when it comes to working this stuff out for themselves. What starts as a rational self-interested decision to tap into the wisdom of crowds can quickly atrophy into the sluggish habit of least resistance. You play follow-my-leader because it’s too much bother to think for yourself, and the result is everything from hipster beards to a plummeting stock market.
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For Baddeley, who is a professor at the dystopian-sounding Institute of Choice at the University of South Australia, the key conundrum is how to account for these distinct models of social herding: the thinking self-interested kind, and the instinctive fuzzy sort. Until recently social scientists have been unable to do anything more than plot outcomes and wonder at people’s motives. But now neuroscience looks set to bridge the gap. Researchers are increasingly using MRI scanners to see which bits of the brain light up when subjects are asked to make decisions about whether to go with the group or stick to their guns. It is, she suggests, like finally being granted access to “the black box” of human consciousness.
What the results show is that there are indeed two types of herding instinct. The first depends on cognitive function and lights up the bit of the brain to do with slow, steady thinking. The second rests on emotion and makes the amygdala dance as if it is at a disco. This much one might have guessed. What’s new, at least to the layperson, is awareness of something called the anterior cingulate cortex, which behaves like a wise parent or a careful judge, mediating between the two decision-making processes trying to find a way that incorporates the best of both.
Baddeley talks optimistically of a future when our decision to follow or resist the herd will be more mindful – three-quarters rational with a tiny bit of gut instinct to keep us on the right track. This sounds hopeful until you remember that we can’t voluntarily flex our cingulate cortexes like biceps. All we can do is remind ourselves to be vigilant, especially in an online environment that functions as an echo chamber for our own pre-existing biases and nudges us away from thinking for ourselves.
She has much less to say about contrarians, those who pride themselves on thinking and doing differently. It can’t be that she hasn’t met any – academia is stuffed with people who would rather choke on a cane toad than accept someone else’s opinion on trust. But the evidence isn’t there yet. We don’t know which bits of Steve Jobs or Nelson Mandela’s brain flashed up like fireworks when they were pondering their next move. And it will probably be a long time before we get close to an answer. Contrarians, after all, are not the types to turn up to a clinical trial simply because they got a memo, still less because their next-door neighbour happens to be going too.
• Copycats and Contrarians is published by Yale. To buy a copy for £16.14 (RRP £18.99) go to guardianbookshop.com