I can’t help but think of all the wrong decisions our species has made throughout its history because of information cascades. Information cascades, as we have learned in class, have the ability to be wrong. An important example would be in a trial with a jury. If a jury decides to vote sequentially, like many do, the cascading effect can easily be observed here. If the first two jury members unwaveringly vote guilty, then the third person, uncertain of his decision, may be swayed to vote guilty as well. This could lead to a cascade of judging a man guilty, even if he is free. These two articles talk about this dilemma:

http://volokh.com/posts/1186152245.shtml

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Articles/1997-11-16trialbyjury.shtml

As mentioned in the first article, an even stronger effect can occur when Supreme Court Justice’s openly vote on a verdict. As a juror is ready to cast his vote, he knows all the votes of the people before him, including the Supreme Court Justices, whose high position of authority and title may sway decisions more than a fellow peer would. This is something that can probably be further explored about how authority and rank of an individual have a stronger effect (that is if they do, but it’s of my educated guess that they do have a stronger effect). However, authority and rank can also be factors that more readily stop cascades.

The second article brings to light another fundamental problem of juries, in that the one or two vocal people in a group can easily sway the majority one way or the other. This would essentially, make the purposes of a larger jury pointless, if most of the votes are being “herded” a certain way. One solution to this problem would be for juries to vote simultaneously; e.g. everyone raising their hand at the same time. Another solution would be to anonymously vote, and count up votes in the end.

Obviously, the jury system is not perfect. It is important to identify cascades, and in the case of juries, try to avoid them altogether. Changing the voting procedure or even changing the way juries decide are the two most direct and apparent ways to remedy this problem.