Jamil Zaki looks to a classic psychological experiment about the desire for company:
One of my all-time favorite studies, conducted by Stanley Schachter in the late 1950s, examined whether fear might bring people together. Schachter convinced college-aged women that they would receive a series of electric shocks about 15 minutes later. Some were told that these shocks would barely tickle, and others were told they would be very painful. Participants were then asked whether they wanted to wait for their shocks in a room alone, or with other people. People who believed that shocks would be painful strongly preferred being near others, whereas those who believed the shocks would be mild generally did not care whether or not they had neighbors in their waiting room. On Schachter’s logic, this exposed a powerful rule about social behavior: in times of anxiety, people seek each other out. Like penguins in February, we tend to face adversity by huddling up.
Schachter refined this rule through a follow-up study. Some participants were given the option to be alone or with others who would also be shocked; others could wait alone or with people who would receive no shocks. When individuals could no longer wait with fellow shock-fearers, their preferences for company disappeared. This suggests that the benefit of crowds depends on our belief that others share our experiences. Schachter put this more poetically, claiming that his finding “removes one shred of ambiguity from the old saw ‘Misery loves company.’ Misery doesn’t love just any kind of company, it loves only miserable company.”
The Dish 