Everybody up!
Time for some ovation inflation (and ovation due to inflation.)
OVATION FOR INFLATION
Last January, The Economist reviewed an unfortunate “The Tempest” at the Royal Theater Drury Lane in London. The critic was doubly un-impressed: by the mechanical acting of the protagonist (Sigourney Weaver, of “Alien” fame) and by the mechanical sudden leap up on their feet by the audience, at the end of the play, showing a strong determination to give Weaver a plebiscitary standing ovation.
The anonymous editor concluded that it was yet another deplorable case of the condition known as “Ovation inflation.”
The topic seems superficial but it is indeed rather fascinating and brings the SOP (or “Standing Ovation Problem”), both a blessing and a curse for social scientists, back into the spotlight. In a 2024 study of the same name, John Miller and Scott Page exemplify the problem as follows:
“a brilliant economic conference ends and the audience starts applauding, some members of the audience can decide to stand up or not to stand up. Will there be a 'standing ovation' or will the enthusiasm die down?'”
In examining the conditions of the social dynamics that intervene at the end of a conference (or a performance on ” X Factor”) Miller and Page begin by saying that applause can be strategic (to confirm to the artist or scholar the quality of his speech,) or informative (I applaud because the quality has exceeded my expectations) or conformist (I applaud because others do it.)
As it always happens, the more you analyze the problem, the more you understand its complexity, so the two add (many) other questions, in trying to give an answer to why people stand up to applaud. Such as: what influences are created among the spectators or - better - 'agents'? How sophisticated are the agents? In what sequence does the event develop and how did it stabilize?
Logicians tell us that the SOP is a binary problem, it allows only two answers: “stand up” to applaud or “don’t stand up.” Many other problems are like this (to break the law or not? Which candidate to vote for in the runoff? To have casual sex or not? To retire, or not?) and they all share at least three things: the answers depend on those around us; those who choose have different levels of intellectual sophistication; information flows along a relational network.
My position in the room certainly matters: if I’m not in the front row but in the back, I can see if and how many people stand up and decide to conform, even if it’s just – I’m speaking for a friend – to stand up so as not to block my view of the stage and not to stare at the buttocks of the spectator in front. But that’s not all.
Like: how does the architecture of the room (e.g. a gallery) influence my probability of applauding? And if I wanted to use an “agent provocateur” (that stimulates or cools the tendency towards SO) where should I put it? And to do what? And if I lower the quality but increase the variety of the show, do I increase the probability of an SO? And how do uneven distributions of the audience impact, e.g. if the front rows are occupied by fans?
Miller and Page’s study benefited from four years of analysis of the ‘problem’ by students of a summer workshop in “computational modeling” and, in parallel, by future engineers from CalTech and graduates in economics.
This allowed them to refine the model; e.g. (only) engineers included among the conditions that the spectator was usually next to a friend or boyfriend/girlfriend, a condition ignored by economists (which led the two scholars to suspect the awkward hypothesis “that the difference in baseline conditions” was “due to the emphasis on individual choice that pervades most of modern economic theory.”)
Theorists clearly consider it a non-issue when the audience is forced to stand up by the organizers, even though it could be a precursor to the current “Ovation Inflation.”
Shows like “X Factor” feature OIP rituals so synchronized as to suggest that they are guided, so as to increase the perceived quality of the entire show. However, I find it hard to imagine a concert hall (my recent example: the Bozart in Brussels, with Wim Mertens) in which “agents provocateurs” are instructed to stand up at the end of the concert to stimulate everyone else.
Miller and Page simply conclude that the SOP is complex and that the crowd tends to be led by a tiny minority: the typical “tail wagging the dog.” So, to us disconsolated readers, they conclude: “what exactly will happen” at the end of a concert “we cannot say, at this time. We have to wait for the concert to end.”
Not the greatest of all results, for a gesture that has become truly common. Obviously the SOP interests the ‘experts’ because understanding the ‘drivers' of a crowd's behaviour comes with an important stake: identifying our ‘tics’ and from there not only predicting but also influencing the future.
It is equally clear that, if Miller and Page do not yet have all the answers, still someone might have them, just un-interested in sharing them. In any case, that evening at the Bozart, among the many involved in the SO, some of them were among the first to leave, before the encore. Almost as if they were saying: I did my job, now let me go.
The Economist adds another reason that could justify the “ovation-inflation.” It is linked, they say, to the price of the ticket and its (consoling and -it seems- proven) positive correlation with Standing Ovations: like, ‘we spent a lot, but damn if it was worth it! I'd better stand up!’
We've entered the 'Ovation due to Inflation' phase.
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Published on the Contrabanda monthly column in BlowUp magazine, March 2025 issue.