washington researchers have found that when people saw others in their group hesitating before making a choice they were about twice as likely to break from the group and make a different choicethe findings of the study were published in the journal management sciencewhen we see other people hesitate before making a choice that tells us they were conflicted that they werent entirely sure they were making the right decision said ian krajbich coauthor of the study and professor of psychology and economics at the ohio state universitythat makes people less confident in the group consensus and frees them to make decisions based on their own information that can help groups to escape bad outcomes added krajbichkrajbich conducted the research with cary frydman associate professor of finance and business economics at the university of southern california marshall school of business their study was published this week in the journal management sciencethe findings have implications for group behaviour in politics finance fashion any situation where there might be herd behaviour krajbich saideven if it appears at first that everyone is following the same trend hesitation may reveal that they are not all on the same page he saidif people start to notice that others are hesitating before joining the herd that can stall the momentum or shift it entirely he addedfor example think about a political campaign in which a candidate is seeking endorsements from popular politicians slow endorsements that come late in a campaign could indicate weak support and are less convincing than endorsements that come earlier in a campaign krajbich saidthe study involved 72 college students they participated in groups of eightin each of the 30 rounds the eight participants were given identical virtual bags containing three balls each marked either a or b the study was conducted on computers one at a time each participant pulled one ball saw which letter was on it and then guessed which letter appeared most frequently in the bagfor example imagine that the first group member pulled out a ball that was marked a it would make sense for that person to guess that the bag contained more a ballseach person following could see what the previous participants guessed but not what letters were on those earlier ballsthat left some participants later in the chain with a dilemma krajbich saidsay you were fourth in line and you pulled an a ball that would suggest there are more a balls in the bag but you see the previous three people guessed byou have to decide whether to go with your information that suggests guessing a or to go with the herd and guess bthats where hesitation comes in krajbich said if you see that the previous person in the chain waited a while before choosing b that may be an important signalthat previous person may have also pulled an a ball like you did and hesitated before choosing b with the herd in that case choosing a might actually make sense