Crowd psychology is a branch of social psychology Social psychology is the study of the relations between people and groups. Scholars in this interdisciplinary area are typically either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis. Ordinary people can typically gain direct power by acting collectively. Historically, because large groups of people In the social sciences a group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. By this definition, society can be viewed as a large group, though most social groups are considerably smaller have been able to bring about dramatic and sudden social change in a manner that bypasses established due process Due process is the principle that the government must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person according to the law. Due process holds the government subservient to the law of the land, protecting individual persons from the state, they have also provoked controversy. Social scientists have developed several different theories for explaining crowd A crowd is a large and definable group of people, while "the crowd" is referred to as the so-called lower orders of people in general . A crowd may be definable through a common purpose or set of emotions, such as at a political rally, at a sports event, or during looting, or simply be made up of many people going about their business in psychology, and the ways in which the psychology Psychology is the scientific study of human or other animal mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychological research can be considered either basic or applied. Psychologists attempt to understand the of the crowd differs significantly from the psychology of those individuals within it. Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung is often considered the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is "by nature religious" and to explore it in depth. Though not the first to analyze dreams, he has become perhaps the most well known pioneer in coined the notion of the Collective unconscious Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is a part of the unconscious mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience. Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal unconscious, in that. Other major thinkers of crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. He was the author of several works in which he expounded theories of national traits, racial superiority, herd behavior and crowd psychology, Wilfred Trotter Wilfred Trotter was a British surgeon, a pioneer in neurosurgery. He was also known for his studies on social psychology, most notably for his concept of the herd instinct, which he first outlined in two published papers in 1908, and later in his famous popular work Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. Trotter argued that gregariousness was an, Gabriel Tarde Jean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist who conceived sociology as based on small psychological interactions among individuals (much as if it were chemistry), the fundamental forces being imitation and innovation, Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic method of psychiatry. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression, and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology and Elias Canetti Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born novelist and non-fiction writer of Sephardi Jewish ancestry who wrote in German. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981.
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Theories of crowd psychology
Classical theories
The main idea of Sigmund Freud's crowd behavior theory is that people who are in a crowd act differently towards people from those who are thinking individually. The minds of the group would merge to form a way of thinking. Each member's enthusiasm would be increased as a result, and one becomes less aware of the true nature of one's actions.
Le Bon’s idea that crowds foster anonymity and sometimes generate emotion has become something of a cliché. Yet it has been contested by some critics, such as Clark McPhail who points out that some studies show that "the madding crowd" does not take on a life of its own, apart from the thoughts and intentions of members. Norris Johnson, after investigating a panic at a 1979 Who concert concluded that the crowd was composed of many small groups of people mostly trying to help each other. However, ultimately, leaders themselves identify themselves to an idea.
Theodor Adorno criticized the belief in a spontaneity of the masses: according to him, the masses were an artificial product of "administrated" modern life. The Ego of the bourgeois subject dissolved itself, giving way to the Id and the "de-psychologized" subject. Furthermore, the bond linking the masses to the leader through the spectacle, as fascism displayed in its public representations, is feigned: "When the leaders become conscious of mass psychology and take it into their own hands, it ceases to exist in a certain sense... Just as little as people believe in the depth of their hearts that the Jews are the devil, do they completely believe in their leader. They do not really identify themselves with him but act this identification, perform their own enthusiasm, and thus participate in their leader's performance... It is probably the suspicion of this fictitiousness of their own 'group psychology' which makes fascist crowds so merciless and unapproachable. If they would stop to reason for a second, the whole performance would go to pieces, and they would be left to panic."[2]
Edward Bernays (1891 – 1995), nephew of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was considered the father of the field of public relations. Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychology of the subconscious. He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he felt was irrational and dangerous.
Convergence theory
Convergence theory holds that crowd behavior is not a product of the crowd itself, but is carried into the crowd by particular individuals. Thus, crowds amount to a convergence of like-minded individuals. In other words, while contagion theory states that crowds cause people to act in a certain way, convergence theory says the opposite: that people who wish to act in a certain way come together to form crowds. An example of convergence theory states that there is no homogeneous activity within a repetitive practice, sometimes observed when an immigrant population becomes common in a previously homogeneous area, and members of the existing community (apparently spontaneously) band together to threaten those trying to move into their neighborhoods. In such cases, convergence theorists contend, the crowd itself does not generate racial hatred or violence; rather, the hostility has been simmering for some time among many local people. A crowd then arises from convergence of people who oppose the presence of these neighbors. Convergence theory claims that crowd behavior as such is not irrational; rather, people in crowds express existing beliefs and values so that the mob reaction is the rational product of widespread popular feeling.
Relevant texts
• Berk, Richard A. Collective Behavior. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1974
• Buford, Bill. Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. (1990)
• Canetti, Elias (1960). Crowds and Power Crowds and Power is a 1960 book by Elias Canetti, dealing with the dynamics of crowds and "packs" and the question of how and why crowds obey rulers. Canetti draws a parallel between ruling and paranoia. Also, the memoirs of Daniel Paul Schreber are analyzed with an implicit critique of Sigmund Freud. Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-24999-8.
• Johnson, Norris R. "Panic at 'The Who Concert Stampede': An Empirical Assessment." Social Problems. Vol. 34, No. 4 (October 1987):362-73
• La Boétie, Etienne, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (16th century) with an introduction by Murray Rothbard, Free Life Editions, 1975. ISBN 0-914156-11-X (etext freely available here, translated by Harry Kurz under the title "Anti-Dictator", Columbia Univ. Press, 1942, with an introduction)
• Le Bon, Gustave (1895). "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind". http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=445. Retrieved November 15 2005.
• Mackay, Charles (1841). Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1-85326-349-4.
• McDougall, William, The Group Mind (1920)
• Mc Phail, Clark, The Myth of the Madding Crowd, New York, Aldine de Gruyter, 1991.
• Moscovici, Serge
o (English) Social influence and social change, Academic Press, 1976.
o (French) Psychologie des minorités actives, P.U.F., 1979
o (French) L’Age des foules: un traité historique de psychologie des masses, Fayard, 1981 (about Gustave Le Bon's invention of crowd psychology and Gabriel Tarde)
o (English) Social Representations: Explorations in Social Psychology, Polity Press, 2000
• Rheingold, Howard, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, 2003
• Reich, Wilhelm, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, (1933) 1946 revised and enlarged US edition
• Surowiecki, James, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, 2004
• Tarde, Gabriel. Les lois de l'imitation (1890), La logique sociale (1895), L'Opinion et la foule (1901), etc.
• Trotter, Wilfred, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, 1914
• Turner, Ralph, and Lewis M. Killian. Collective Behavior 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972; 3d ed., 1987; 4th ed., 1993.
• Wells, H.G. Men Like Gods, 1923. (Wells describes a fictional utopian world in which crowds have been eliminated from society.)
References
1. ^ See Serge Moscovici, L’Age des foules: un traité historique de psychologie des masses, Fayard, 1981 2. ^ Theodor Adorno, "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda" in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, London, Routledge, 1991, p.132
• Anonymous (group) • Bread and circuses • Bystander effect • Carl Jung • Charisma • Collective behavior • Collective Effervescence • Collective hysteria • Collective consciousness (and Georg Lukács' critique of Le Bon's crowd psychology, notably through the concept of class consciousness) • Collective unconscious • Communal reinforcement • Conformity (psychology) • The Wisdom of Crowds • Elliott wave theory • Edward Bernays • Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon, early theorists of crowd and social psychology • Group behavior • Groupthink • Herd behavior • Herding instinct • Hive mind • Kurt Lewin • LGAT • Macy Conferences • Memory hole • Mob mentality • Over-soul • Social proof • Volksgeist ("Spirit of the People") • Wilfred Trotter
[edit] Other • Dr. J. P van de Sande (Dutch and English, see On Crowds)
See also
Other
- Dr. J. P van de Sande (Dutch and English, see On Crowds)
- "Crowd Disasters" by Prof. Dr. G. Keith Still
Bibliography
- Berk, Richard A. Collective Behavior. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1974
- Buford, Bill. Among the Thugs Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence is a 1990 work of journalism by American writer Bill Buford documenting football hooliganism in the United Kingdom: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. (1990)
- Canetti, Elias (1960). Crowds and Power. Viking Adult. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-670-24999-8.
- Johnson, Norris R. "Panic at 'The Who Concert Stampede': An Empirical Assessment." Social Problems. Vol. 34, No. 4 (October 1987):362-73
- La Boétie, Etienne Étienne de La Boétie was a French judge, writer, political philosopher and friend of Montaigne, author of the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (Discours de la servitude volontaire), The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (16th century) with an introduction by Murray Rothbard Murray Newton Rothbard was an American intellectual, individualist anarchist, author, and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism". Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered by some to be "dean of the Austrian, Free Life Editions, 1975. ISBN 0-914156-11-X (etext freely available here, translated by Harry Kurz under the title "Anti-Dictator", Columbia Univ. Press, 1942, with an introduction)
- Le Bon, Gustave (1895). "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind". http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=445. Retrieved November 15 2005.
- Mackay, Charles (1841). Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1-85326-349-4.
- McDougall, William, The Group Mind (1920)
- Mc Phail, Clark, The Myth of the Madding Crowd, New York, Aldine de Gruyter, 1991.
- Moscovici, Serge
- (English) Social influence and social change, Academic Press, 1976.
- (French) Psychologie des minorités actives, P.U.F., 1979
- (French) L’Age des foules: un traité historique de psychologie des masses, Fayard, 1981 (about Gustave Le Bon's invention of crowd psychology and Gabriel Tarde)
- (English) Social Representations: Explorations in Social Psychology, Polity Press, 2000
- Rheingold, Howard, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, 2003
- Reich, Wilhelm, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, (1933) 1946 revised and enlarged US edition
- Surowiecki, James, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, 2004
- Tarde, Gabriel. Les lois de l'imitation (1890), La logique sociale (1895), L'Opinion et la foule (1901), etc.
- Trotter, Wilfred, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, 1914
- Turner, Ralph, and Lewis M. Killian. Collective Behavior 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972; 3d ed., 1987; 4th ed., 1993.
- Wells, H.G. Men Like Gods, 1923. (Wells describes a fictional utopian world in which crowds have been eliminated from society.)
References
Categories: Crowd psychology
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You can be creative only if you are an individual, you cannot create as a part of the . mob psychology. . The . mob psychology. is uncreative; it lives a life of drag, it knows no dance, no song, no joy; it is mechanical. ...
Q. "We live in a time of hysteria about paedophilia, a mob psychology that calls to mind the Salem witch-hunts of 1692." Spot on or rubbish?
Asked by 3333 - Wed Feb 4 01:10:32 2009 - - 3 Answers - 0 Comments
A. Rubbish. The Witch Trials were deplorable because "witchcraft" had no real victims. Pedophilia does. Being a victim of it makes me biased though. As it should.
Answered by Mariana Makes Art - Wed Feb 4 01:17:15 2009
