herd instinct

the impulse or tendency toward clustering or acting in a group, especially the presumed instinct toward or need for gregariousness and conformity.

Origin of herd instinct

First recorded in 1905–10

It is these that, with the power of the herd-instinct, press into the mind of the child, there fashioning and moulding it.

Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology |C. G. Jung
There must be free thought, scepticism, diminution in the intensity of herd-instinct.

The Problem of China |Bertrand Russell
It is this "herd-instinct," too, which makes man so extremely sensitive to the opinions of the society in which he lives.

Outwitting Our Nerves |Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
The instinct which teaches the birds to build nests taught them to build huts; the herd-instinct drove them into tribes.

The Pools of Silence |H. de Vere Stacpoole

Weakening under the pressure, and swung by the power of herd-instinct, most of us "came."

Tramping on Life |Harry Kemp

herd instinct

psychol the inborn tendency to associate with others and follow the group's behaviour