Joel Best—known for his books about the misuse of statistics—is back with Flavor of the Month, a sociological analysis of fads. Fads are the short-lived enthusiasms of a group. They are touted as lasting innovations but fail to live up to the hype. Most of us can think of toys, dances, and gadgets that fit that description. But Best is particularly interested in the special case of institutional fads, or those related to professional practice, administration, and policy. These are instances of faddish ideas: the vague, recipe-like “solutions” sold by management gurus; miracle diets and promising health treatments given prominent coverage by the media; the policy bandwagons, finger-pointing campaigns, and panics that animate politics; the dubious discovery or simplistic theory that temporarily captures the imagination of a professional or academic clique. You’d think people would know better by now. Best wonders why even smart people and powerful organizations fall for fads—in many cases, falling for them repeatedly.

Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads by Joel Best (University of California Press, 2006), pp. xi, 201.

Much of Flavor of the Month is spent describing the anatomy of an institutional fad. There are three stages. First, an urgent problem is framed and novel solution devised, both forming a coherent story to be sold by promoters and trendsetters (the emerging stage). Second, momentum builds as the story spreads, because of the “emotional satisfactions” of joining a movement and the pursuit of material benefit (the surging stage). Third, the story is abandoned because the results disappoint, the novelty wears off, or an enticing alternative appears (the purging stage). Rhyming taxonomies are great mnemonic devices. Unfortunately for Best, rhyme comes at the expense of descriptive accuracy here: “purging” should probably be “fading” because fads usually peter out due to neglect and abandonment, not a systematic clean up.

This may seem like an stock model but Best adds a lot of nuance here and there.

Best explains that the way faddish solutions are designed add to their appeal. The solution contains a compelling explanation, often supported by bits of evidence that tend to be weak but nonetheless persuasive (such as anecdotal success stories). Besides being novel (at least, superficially so), the solution tends to be abstract and somewhat mysterious, which makes it difficult to critique head-on. Abstractness makes it easy to claim that a solution can solve multiple problems, if not act as a panacea, which appeals to multiple (even conflicting) audiences. Vagueness allows potential trade-offs to be downplayed. The faddish solution also tends to be condensed, like a recipe, to make it memorable. Finally, the solution is given status (or street cred) by endorsements from prominent figures or an association with an organization (such as a prestigious university or successful corporation).

Joining a fad has an emotional appeal, explains Best. Momentum breeds enthusiasm and excitement, even out-right mania in extreme cases. People take pride in blazing a new trail. It gives them hope. Or at least they can join the fad as a fresh challenge or way to relieve boredom. If all that doesn’t work, then fear and conformity might do the trick. People fear being left behind, especially in highly competitive environments. Social pressures can coax people to fall in line with the enthusiasm of the moment.

Best is also careful to make clear that fads do not dissipate solely because of a lack of merit. Indeed, fads may not entirely dissipate but leave a “residue”. Most fads are abandoned because the emotional charge has been spent and they begin to look passé. The widespread enthusiasm may trigger a snob effect, whereby trendsetters decide to look for more fashionable ideas. People can become disenchanted for a variety of reasons and start to debunk the fad. New fads come along to sate the appetite of those who thrive on novelty. There are cases, however, where fads can endure by becoming entrenched within rigid social structures (such as laws or policies). In other words, they become institutionalized.

Of special interest, Best picks up on the relationship between fads and research. Conducting rigorous empirical research and compiling evidence takes time. Some institutions (such as political and business institutions) are often unreceptive to scientific evidence that conflicts with the prevailing view. They are also impatient. By the time a body of evidence reaches the critical mass necessary to draw sound conclusions, it is usually too late. The fad may already be over or it may have become institutionalized, making it difficult to dislodge. This is lamentable because the thinnest forms of evidence tend to surface early. Defenders of a fad are often able to brush off new, inconvenient evidence using a variety of gambits. Best illustrates with the example of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), an anti-drug education programme. Its faddish appeal resulted in broad ideological support and led to its institutionalization. When the scientific evidence showed that it had no effect, the programme had become entrenched. To prevent such cases, Best advocates scepticism in the face of astonishing claims, a continual insistence on new and better evidence, and a heightened awareness of an institution’s past experience with fads.

Best’s ultimate goal is to explain why smart people accept and actively promote fads. Culture and social structure provide a foundation. Modern people (Americans specifically) are acutely aware that society is continually changing. They tend to hold optimistic expectations of progress and idealistic standards of social perfectibility. There is a prevalent faith in rationality and its ability to provide dramatic breakthroughs. Institutions tend to be fairly decentralized, allowing for variation and choice. Ideas can spread quickly through dense social networks, which include everything from interpersonal relations (e.g., friendships and formal work relations) to the media (e.g., news reports and professional publications). Thus, even those not spurred by emotions can get caught up in fads out of an ideological predisposition and informational bombardment.

The most interesting reason for the spread of fads is the link between faddish thinking and careerism. According to Best, promoting fads can open up career opportunities as money, time, and energy are reallocated to new projects and jobs. Fad promoters are seen as more innovative, open-minded, vigilant, cutting-edge, and forward-looking. The cruel twist is that these same promoters need not follow through with full implementation to gain this prized reputation, for the abandonment of fads rarely involves much fan-fare and there is usually another fad around to glom onto (a promiscuity called fad surfing). Even those who do not actively promote fads are willing to go along because they don’t want to be seen as asleep at the wheel.

At the same time, sceptics are often viewed as obstructionists who are mired in the old ways. The literature promoting fads often speaks disparagingly of non-adopters (aloof and ignorant), resistors (cynical and recalcitrant), and laggards (hapless and complacent). A large vocabulary describing such people has evolved over the years, most of it coming from the trendy management literature. Career risks cause resistors to obstruct in less overt ways, such as circulating jokey, anti-fad folklore (e.g., Dilbert comics and satirical quotations) and subtly sabotaging and stalling efforts. None of this helps careers until the fad fades and sceptics come out of the ordeal looking dispassionate and thoughtful. Even then, true believers often attribute the failure to a lack of support and may harbour resentment.

To Best’s list, I would add a few aspects of careerism that can fuel fads. Few managers are rewarded for simply acting as a custodian of a “big idea” promoted by a predecessors. In workplaces where tenures are relatively brief, this creates a built-in mechanism for fad surfing. As a new manager takes the helm, the old fad is dumped and a new fad embraced. In so doing, the manager gains the (naïve) sense that he has left his personal mark on an organization. A similar thing happens when a colleague in another area of the organization embraces a fad. As Best points out, in the field of management, several fads compete for attention at any given time. A manager may promote a different (but not necessarily conflicting) fad than her colleague in order to set herself apart. Both situations are cases of the not-made-here phenomenon, whereby a manager replaces one fad for another to gain a profile as a reform-minded hero. People may not have any elegance to a fad already in progress and which they had no hand in originating. Best does describe a similar situation whereby scholars, anxious to make a contribution and not rehash the ideas of someone else, adopt faddish theories to get published.

Overall, Flavor of the Month is an excellent synthesis of the literature about fads. There are a few cases where Best misses the mark, however.

First, I’m not convinced that lasting diffusion (innovation) is as analytically separable from fads as Best suggests. Best makes a point of distinguishing between fads and innovation, noting that “there is essentially no difference” between the two as they emerge and surge. (p. 7) This is illustrated with curves A and B in Figure 1. I am prepared to argue that this is an overly simplistic portrayal of lasting diffusion.

As Linden & Fenn (2003) show, there are many instances when diffusion starts with a nearly complete fad cycle (or “hype cycle”) before regaining popularity. This is illustrated by curve C in Figure 1. This happens because the occurrence of a fad does not preclude a more serious attempt at widespread adoption. The initial hype certainly makes long-term diffusion difficult once people start to lose interest on mass; it creates a “trough of disillusionment”, as Linden & Fenn put it. Yet there are many reasons why diffusion may soldier on. For example, when ideas and technologies are put to the test, improvements can take place which make them more viable. Or, promoters may oversell very useful ideas early on. A period of hype does seem to greet every new idea these days.

It is possible to counter argue that Linden & Fenn’s hype-cycle model is itself a way to manage expectations by those who promote fads. Both authors work for Gartner, a consultancy. I have witnessed the model being used that way. However, there is no denying that there are many cases in which the model holds true. Indeed, most technologies that last long enough to become widely-used, mature products (e.g., broadband networking) have experienced a fad cycle as early adopters rush in. I suspect the reason why Best does not consider the possibility of this pattern is that he understates the length of time often needed for lasting diffusion relative to fads. Although Best acknowledges that timing is important, he does not speak specifically about time spans. Interestingly, Bests notion of institutionalized fads may also follow this hype-cycle pattern.

I also note that Best has written a strangely truncated chapter about how successive fads may unfold according to a particular dynamic. It is often said that a group’s enthusiasm (a.) oscillates between two opposing types of ideas (pendulum swings), (b.) oscillates in a way that inches forward in a particular direction (a cork-screw spiral), or (c.) moves onwards and upwards in a particular direction (like a ratchet). Fads may also proceed in simple waves. Best gives examples of each. These all seem to be useful ways of thinking about successive fads. However, immediately after Best gives the reader these analytical templates, he decides that the real world is too complicated to be described in this way. He then briefly notes that there is too much flux and lack of co-ordination—leaving the discussion pretty much at that. I get the impression that Best tried to create a comprehensive taxonomy of fad dynamics and then just gave up. Diet fads and the like seem to confound simple patterns. The closest analogy Best can come up with is a pinball which, as far as analogies go, doesn’t offer a great deal of insight about patterns.

Certainly Best’s style relies heavily on taxonomies and types, much like a butterfly collector; everything with a label, everything organized into groups, like with like. This is not a criticism. Indeed, Best’s tidiness and organisation makes Flavor of the Month a quick read. For those getting sea sick from successive waves of institutional fads, this book does a good job of offering a diagnosis.

Review by Peter Stoyko

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