Tinkerbell Effect

The Tinkerbell effect is an expression in psychology and finance to describe things that are thought to exist only because people believe in them. Effectively a shared collective delusion at a critical scale.

This differs from the network effect generated by financial assets and currencies whose efficacy is a collective legal fiction that arises out its use as a medium of exchange or investment vehicle.

See also high-control group, NFT, bandwagon-bias and endowment-effect.

References

1. Diehl, Stephen. 2021. ‘The Tinkerbell Griftopia’. 19 November 2021. https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/tinkerbell.html.