Robert CialdiniFounder Cialdini Institute & NYT Bestselling Author

Why Fear Makes Us Follow the Crowd: The Shining Study #shorts

19 Oct 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:55

In this YouTube short, social influence expert Robert Cialdini describes an experiment he conducted to illustrate how fear or perceived threat amplifies people's tendency to follow social proof. Participants were shown a clip from the horror film The Shining and, midway through, were presented with an advertisement for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that highlighted the museum’s high visitor numbers (over one million annually). A control group watched a romantic comedy before seeing the same ad. The results showed that those who experienced the scary movie were significantly more likely to express interest in visiting the museum than the control group. Cialdini explains that when individuals feel uncertainty or fear, they seek safety by aligning with the behavior of the majority, making social‑proof messages especially persuasive under threat.

Chapters

We did a study in which we showed subjects a scary movie. You know that movie, The Shining? Yeah. Jack Nicholson, the axe. We showed them that movie. In the middle of the movie, we stopped and showed them an ad for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. If we said, a museum that's visited by over a million people a year, those people who were seeing the scary movie became significantly more likely to want to visit the museum than those who were, who were seeing A romantic comedy. Because when you're afraid, you want to go with the group. So in a state of uncertainty or threat or fear, people will go to the message that says a lot of other people just like you have decided to do that. Okay, that's my safety. I'm in the group.