Mimetic desire answers for a lot of things. Rene Girard is the man to read on it. But the short version is that our desires are greatly affected by the desires we observe. We want what is wanted. There are a lot of interesting social experiments illustrating this - auction behavior, though not proctored for the purpose, is exhibit A. There is one experiment involving children and a balloon that is interesting. Basically, the children are getting along fine until one person claims the balloon on the string. Then they all want it, and all hell breaks loose.
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