People often demonstrate biases and errors in thinking about their social world. Some common cognitive errors include social proof, where people believe an action is correct if others are doing it, even without considering outcomes. For example, someone may drop money in a donation box just because others in line are doing so, without realizing the ticket price already includes the service. Studies show how powerful social proof can be - in one experiment, participants gave obviously wrong answers to simple questions just to match other participants' responses. Social proof helps explain phenomena like stock market panics and the spread of trends, ideas, and behaviors through cultures.