The Front Row Effect

Say you’re at a concert in the summertime. You and your friend set up your blanket, set up a nice little picnic spread, and settle in for a night of music. As the evening progresses, you can expect from time to time, you will stand up either an ovation at the end of a song or to get the attention of a wandering friend. After you stand, you sit back down. Then something curious happens: the band gets on stage and everyone in front of you begins to stand up. You’re soon blocked by the wave of standing people and left with the choice of seeing the stage or the backs of legs. So you stand in order to see the stage, forcing the people behind you to do the same.

This occurrence happens all the time at public events and can be described as the front row effect. Sometimes unwanted and at odds with your own intensions, it’s a behavior change initiated and sustained by strangers with similar interests. Keith Bradsher cited a similar example in High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV; as more SUVs came on the road, smaller vehicles were not enough to make us feel safe so we all went out and bought large SUVs in droves.

When convenience matters more than size, the front row effect can be applied to our efforts to live a more sustainable lifestyle. If everyone in front and around you is throwing away paper and plastic, it can be easy to feel dissuaded into not recycling even though the behavior is against your own values. The observed actions of others directly affect your own comfort, and we tend to conform to a group in a public setting. The front row effect becomes more of an “everyone-else-is-doing-it-so-i-might-as-well” mindset and have a powerful impact on an individual’s behavior in the context of a larger group of people.

References:

Bradsher, Keith. High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV. New York: Public Affairs, 2002.