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I Love Cheerleaders!
Tags: No Tags.Of course I like cheerleaders. What’s NOT to like? Hot girls in skimpy outfits bouncing up and down works on just about every heterosexual male on the planet. But of course that’s not what I want to write about today.
One of the interesting differences between HYIPs and other investments is the HYIP community. If you invest in stocks or bonds or property or commodities, you’ll probably do some research, watch the news, maybe talk to a professional and then you’ll invest. Most of the information comes from well-established and reasonably trust-worthy sources. There’s not much room for the regular investor to give his input.
In the HYIP world though, it’s often ALL about the regular investor. Since we’re unlikely to hear about the latest NSFG news from CNN.com, forums and blogs are often the only way to find out about new opportunities or updates on our favorite funds. Most successful HYIP investors are active in several different discussion groups.
Of course sharing information, especially DD reports, is great -Â but as the groups grow problems develop. One such problem is what psychologists call groupthink.
Groupthink occurs when the norms for conforming in a homogeneous group become so strong, and members are highly concerned about maintaining unanimity, that they fail to critically evaluate their options and consequently make a poor decision. (Source)
When everything is seemingly going well with a particular program, discussions will often revolve around the good impressions all the members have. Repeat ‘Yay I got paid’ 500 times in a forum thread and eventually you have a mob who will not tolerate any negativity from other members. Even when things starts to go horribly wrong, otherwise sensible people will continue to believe in their beloved investment fund. Rationality goes out the door. Anyone disagreeing with the group gets attacked -Â often personally, even though it’s irrelevant to the discussion.
Thus is born The Cheerleader! Watch out for these mobs – don’t get swept up in the excitement. Make up your own mind!
For reference, here’s groupthink expert Irving Janis’ 8 symptoms of groupthink:
- Illusion of invulnerability
- Unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group
- Collective rationalization of group’s decisions
- Shared stereotypes of outgroup, particularly opponents
- Self-censorship; members withhold criticisms
- Illusion of unanimity (see false consensus effect)
- Direct pressure on dissenters to conform
- Self-appointed “mindguards” protect the group from negative information
Sounds familiar, yea? Currently I believe the worst offender without a doubt is HyipDiscussion.com. They have so many cheerleaders that it’s often hard to find ANY rationality in the entire forum. Disasters attributed mainly to them includes Global Mutual, MPDW and currently Rog’s Magic Profit Program. So, HyipD: This trophy is for you!
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Popularity: 6% [?]
So you are telling us to keep away from Rog’s Magic Profit Program.Am I right?
the more uniform & louder the cheer leading is often a good sign of the herd instinct taking predominance. further, if there are sharp or violent reactions to the smallest of negativism or critique clearly indicates the desire to dominate the audience of investors. all these are important signs of weakness rather than strength of a program.
a really good & genuine program that pays consistently beyond 5 years would silent any critic regardless of whether it has adequate DD or has gone private.
most will die out within 5 years, even if there is DD or has gone private. & time is still the best testament of an investment program’s real strength & viability.
the debate of words, arguments, banning of members, etc has little effect in changing the truth eventually. program owners & their admins will try their best to manipulate their potential audience of investors, but each individual has to decide when to hold & when to run …
I think this blog entry is not attributed to just warn you on Rog’s program. By the way, great blog entry Devilboy! Seems like research was done before presenting this entry
Excellent post, Devilboy. And I agree, HYIPDiscussion.com is the best example of how the group psychology and cheerleading works (a good reason for me to visit that forum very rarely recently)