Herd Instinct Trumps Common Sense and Responsibility

People are social creatures, and they tend to pattern their behavior...and even beliefs...on how the groups they are most intimately identified with around them come down on what to do or think.  They can watch the TV and get all the pertinent facts on any issue, form their own initial independent opinions, and then go back to work or their circle of buddies and find out that the group in question is coming down completely differently from they've been informed...yet their social instincts will lead them away from sound judgment in the face of possible rejection from the group.  And groups themselves tend to be dominated and manipulated by aggressive "Alpha" personality types that have achieved what they want the most...to have people around them cowed and fearful of their disapproval and scorn.  I've seen this tendency in many scenarios throughout my life...from kids at high school bus stops pandering to the bullies among them to today's situation in which wearing a mask in public situations to fight the spread of COVID-19 is often regarded as taboo.  Well, I've never been one to strive for others' approval and at this stage in my life I'm not about to start.  But I do understand how most others are wired and pity them for feeling that they are so subject to pressure from peers...especially their aggressive peers...that they fear expressing their own thoughts or acting in a rational, socially responsible way.  I've heard during the past recent months about "herd immunity" regarding the ultimate decline of an invading pathogen.  But what I'm talking about here is "herd instinct"...which seems to be trumping common sense and responsibility...