 By way of herd mentality, students tended to encourage each other towards beer, hamburger and cigarettes, whilst housewives tended to encourage each other towards furniture and detergent.Whilst this particular study was done in 1977, one cannot discount its findings in today's society.A study done by Burke, Leykin, Li and Zhang in 2014 on the social influence on shopper behavior shows that shoppers are influenced by direct interactions with companions, and as a group size grows, herd behaviour becomes more apparent.