"Following the Herd"

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv26n4/v26n4-2.pdf

This as an awesome article about how information cascades start and why they can occur so quickly, particularly in political situations. In particular, I enjoyed the theory that people have two types of political opinions, those that are private and those that are public. Therefore, when it becomes acceptable for their private opinions to come out, public opinion rapidly changes. Further than politically, think about all of your opinions that you have privately that differ from those that you show publicly. Now think about the information cascade that could occur if you, being a credible person, let your private opinion known and many others agreed with you.