I observed an interesting pattern at the train stop this morning.

A message came up on the LED message board saying that the next inbound train to Boston would be arriving on the outbound track this morning. A few people noticed this and you could see the inner dialogs in their heads about whether they should trust the message and go over to the other side of the tracks. One person decided to tentatively trust it and went to the outbound track. Then a couple more people, myself included, went over as well. The gist of the small-talk overheard was “Sure, it says ‘outbound track’, but how often are these messages ever true?”

Now that there were a handful of people waiting on the outbound track, other brave souls started coming over too. Not long after, all the new people that arrived at the inbound track went directly to the outbound one without hesitating.

One can only conclude that seeing a large enough group of fellow passengers that decided to trust the message somehow gave it more validity. But the interesting thing is, the orginal few “leaders” had very strong doubts about going over. They didn’t know any better than the rest of the people, they just made a choice and went with it.

I think there are two lessons to be learned here:

1. If you want people to trust you, be consistently accurate in the messages you send out (unlike the MBTA).
2. Don’t blindly follow the crowd because, chances are, its leaders didn’t have any more of a clue than you do. Trust your own common sense.