The researchers divided the participants into two groups. The first group saw only the song title and the name of the band. They rated songs because she name of the song or the name of the band looked interesting. After listening to the song participants rated it with stars.
The second group of teenagers received extra information. This group could also see the number of downloads for each song. The songs with many downloads looked like they were very popular. The teenagers thought that these songs were favorites with their peers. However, the researchers made up the number of downloads for each song. The songs showing the most downloads weren't really popular. In fact, these songs weren't very good, according to music experts.
Participants in the second group usually gave the most stars to the songs with the most downloads. They thought these songs were popular with their peers. They were not interested in the quality of the song. They just wanted to listen to songs that their peers liked.