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A category of social psychology known as "crowd psychology" or "mob psychology" examines how the psychology of a group of people differs from the psychology of any one person within the group. The study of crowd psychology looks into the actions and thought processes of both the individual members of the crowd and of the crowd as a collective social entity. The behavior of a crowd is much influenced by deindividuation (seen as a person's loss of responsibility [1] ) and by the person's impression of the universality of behavior, both of which conditions increase in magnitude with size of the crowd. [2] [3] Notable theorists in crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904), and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). [4] Many of these theories are today tested or used to simulate crowd behaviors in normal or emergency situations. One of the main focuses in these simulation works aims to prevent crowd crushes and stampedes. [5] [6]
According to his biological theory of criminology suggests that criminality is inherited and that someone “born criminal” could be identified by the way they look [7] Enrico Ferri expressed his view of crime as degeneration more profound than insanity, for in most insane persons the primitive moral sense has survived the wreck of their intelligence. Along similar lines were the remarks of Benedickt, Sergi and Marro. A response from the French, who put forward an environmental theory of human psychology, M. Anguilli called attention to the importance of the influence of the social environment upon crime. Professor Alexandre Lacassagne thought that the atavistic and degenerative theories as held by the Italian school were exaggerations and false interpretations of the facts, and that the important factor was the social environment." [8]
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In Paris during 10–17 August 1889, the Italian school received a stronger rebuke of their biological theories during the 2nd International Congress of Criminal Anthropology. A radical divergence in the views between the Italian and the French schools was reflected in the proceedings.
Earlier, literature on crowds and crowd behavior had appeared as early as 1841, with the publication of Charles Mackay's book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds . [10] The attitude towards crowds underwent an adjustment with the publication of Hippolyte Taine's six-volume The Origins of Contemporary France (1875). In particular Taine's work helped to change the opinions of his contemporaries on the actions taken by the crowds during the 1789 Revolution. Many Europeans held him in great esteem. While it is difficult to directly link his works to crowd behavior, it may be said that his thoughts stimulated further study of crowd behavior. However, it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that scientific interest in the field gained momentum. French physician and anthropologist Gustave Le Bon became its most-influential theorist. [4] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
There is limited research into the types of crowd and crowd membership and there is no consensus as to the classification of types of crowds. Two recent scholars, Momboisse (1967) [16] and Berlonghi (1995) [17] focused upon purpose of existence to differentiate among crowds. Momboisse developed a system of four types: casual, conventional, expressive, and aggressive. Berlonghi classified crowds as spectator, demonstrator, or escaping, to correlate to the purpose for gathering.
Another approach to classifying crowds is sociologist Herbert Blumer's system of emotional intensity. He distinguishes four types of crowds: casual, conventional, expressive, and active. A group of people who just so happen to be at the same location at the same time is known as a casual crowd. This kind of mob lacks any true identity, long-term goal, or shared connection. [18] A group of individuals who come together for a particular reason is known as a conventional crowd. They could be going to a theater, concert, movie, or lecture. According to Erich Goode, conventional crowds behave in a very conventional and hence somewhat structured manner; as their name suggests, they do not truly act out collective behavior. [18] A group of people who come together solely to show their excitement and feelings is known as an expressive crowd. A political candidate's rally, a religious revival, and celebrations like Mardi Gras are a few examples. [18] An active crowd behaves violently or in other damaging ways, such looting, going above and beyond an expressive crowd. One of the main examples of an acting crowd is a mob, which is an extremely emotional group that either commits or is prepared to do violence. [18] A crowd changes its level of emotional intensity over time, and therefore, can be classed in any one of the four types.
Generally, researchers in crowd psychology have focused on the negative aspects of crowds, [11] but not all crowds are volatile or negative in nature. For example, in the beginning of the socialist movement crowds were asked to put on their Sunday dress and march silently down the street. A more-modern example involves the sit-ins during the Civil Rights movement. Crowds can reflect and challenge the held ideologies of their sociocultural environment. They can also serve integrative social functions, creating temporary communities. [2] [11]
Crowds can be defined as active ("mobs") or passive ("audiences"). Active crowds can be further divided into aggressive, escapist, acquisitive, or expressive mobs. [2] Aggressive mobs are often violent and outwardly focused. Examples are football riots,the Los Angeles riots of 1992 , and the 2011 English riots. [19] Escapist mobs are characterized by a large number of people trying to get out of a dangerous situation like the November 2021 Astroworld Festival. [20] Incidents involving crowds are often reported by media as the results of "panic", [21] [22] but some experts have criticized the media's implication that panic is a main cause of crowd disasters, noting that actual panic is relatively rare in fire situations, and that the major factors in dangerous crowd incidents are infrastructure design, crowd density and breakdowns in communication. [23] [24] [25] Acquisitive mobs occur when large numbers of people are fighting for limited resources. An expressive mob is any other large group of people gathering for an active purpose. Civil disobedience, rock concerts, and religious revivals all fall under this category. [2]
Gustave Le Bon held that crowds existed in three stages: submergence, contagion, and suggestion. [26] During submergence, the individuals in the crowd lose their sense of individual self and personal responsibility. This is quite heavily induced by the anonymity of the crowd. [26] Contagion refers to the propensity for individuals in a crowd to unquestioningly follow the predominant ideas and emotions of the crowd. In Le Bon's view, this effect is capable of spreading between "submerged" individuals much like a disease. [2] Suggestion refers to the period in which the ideas and emotions of the crowd are primarily drawn from a shared unconscious ideology. Crowd members become susceptible to any passing idea or emotion. [26] This behavior comes from an archaic shared unconscious and is therefore uncivilized in nature. It is limited by the moral and cognitive abilities of the least capable members. [26] Le Bon believed that crowds could be a powerful force only for destruction. [11] Additionally, Le Bon and others have indicated that crowd members feel a lessened sense of legal culpability, due to the difficulty in prosecuting individual members of a mob. [2] In short, the individual submerged in the crowd loses self control as the "collective mind" takes over and makes the crowd member capable of violating personal or social norms. [27]
Le Bon's idea that crowds foster anonymity and generate emotion has been contested by some critics. Clark McPhail points out studies which show that "the madding crowd" does not take on a life of its own, apart from the thoughts and intentions of members. [28] Norris Johnson, after investigating a panic at a 1979 The Who concert concluded that the crowd was composed of many small groups of people mostly trying to help each other. Additionally, Le Bon's theory ignores the socio-cultural context of the crowd, which some theorists argue can disempower social change. [11] R. Brown disputes the assumption that crowds are homogenous, suggesting instead that participants exist on a continuum, differing in their ability to deviate from social norms. [2]
Sigmund Freud's crowd behavior theory primarily consists of the idea that becoming a member of a crowd serves to unlock the unconscious mind. This occurs because the super-ego, or moral center of consciousness, is displaced by the larger crowd, to be replaced by a charismatic crowd leader. McDougall argues similarly to Freud, saying that simplistic emotions are widespread, and complex emotions are rarer. In a crowd, the overall shared emotional experience reverts to the least common denominator (LCD), leading to primitive levels of emotional expression. [4] This organizational structure is that of the "primal horde"—pre-civilized society—and Freud states that one must rebel against the leader (re-instate the individual morality) in order to escape from it. [4]
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, Adorno stated the bond linking the masses to the leader through the spectacle 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." [29]
Deindividuation theory is largely based on the ideas of Gustave Le Bon [27] and argues that in typical crowd situations, factors such as anonymity, group unity, and arousal can weaken personal controls (e.g. guilt, shame, self-evaluating behavior) by distancing people from their personal identities and reducing their concern for social evaluation. [4] [11] This lack of restraint increases individual sensitivity to the environment and lessens rational forethought, which can lead to antisocial behavior. [4] [11] More recent theories have stated that deindividuation hinges upon a person being unable, due to situation, to have strong awareness of their self as an object of attention. This lack of attention frees the individual from the necessity of normal social behavior. [4]
American social psychologist Leon Festinger and colleagues first elaborated the concept of deindividuation in 1952. It was further refined by American psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who detailed why mental input and output became blurred by such factors as anonymity, lack of social constraints, and sensory overload. [30] Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment has been presented as a strong argument for the power of deindividuation, [4] although it was later criticised as unscientific. [31] Further experimentation has had mixed results when it comes to aggressive behaviors, and has instead shown that the normative expectations surrounding the situations of deindividuation influence behavior (i.e. if one is deindividuated as a KKK member, aggression increases, but if it is as a nurse, aggression does not increase). [4]
A further distinction has been proposed between public and private deindividuation. When private aspects of self are weakened, one becomes more subject to crowd impulses, but not necessarily in a negative way. It is when one no longer attends to the public reaction and judgement of individual behavior that antisocial behavior is elicited. [4] Philip Zimbardo also did not view deindividuation exclusively as a group phenomenon, and applied the concept to suicide, murder, and interpersonal hostility. [27]
Convergence theory [32] holds that crowd behavior is not a product of the crowd, but rather the crowd is a product of the coming together of like-minded individuals. [2] [11] Floyd Allport argued that "An individual in a crowd behaves just as he would behave alone, only more so." [33] Convergence theory holds that crowds form from people of similar dispositions, whose actions are then reinforced and intensified by the crowd. [11]
Convergence theory claims that crowd behavior 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. However, this theory is questioned by certain research which found that people involved in the 1970s riots were less likely than nonparticipant peers to have previous convictions. [11]
Critics of this theory report that it still excludes the social determination of self and action, in that it argues that all actions of the crowd are born from the individuals' intents. [11]
Ralph H. Turner and Lewis Killian put forth the idea that norms emerge from within the crowd. Emergent norm theory states that crowds have little unity at their outset, but during a period of milling about, key members suggest appropriate actions, and following members fall in line, forming the basis for the crowd's norms. [11]
Key members are identified through distinctive personalities or behaviors. These garner attention, and the lack of negative response elicited from the crowd as a whole stands as tacit agreement to their legitimacy. [4] The followers form the majority of the mob, as people tend to be creatures of conformity who are heavily influenced by the opinions of others. [10] This has been shown in the conformity studies conducted by Sherif and Asch. [34] Crowd members are further convinced by the universality phenomenon, described by Allport as the persuasive tendency of the idea that if everyone in the mob is acting in such-and-such a way, then it cannot be wrong. [2]
Emergent norm theory allows for both positive and negative mob types, as the distinctive characteristics and behaviors of key figures can be positive or negative in nature. An antisocial leader can incite violent action, but an influential voice of non-violence in a crowd can lead to a mass sit-in. [4] When a crowd described as above targets an individual, anti-social behaviors may emerge within its members.
A major criticism of this theory is that the formation and following of new norms indicates a level of self-awareness that is often missing in the individuals in crowds (as evidenced by the study of deindividuation). Another criticism is that the idea of emergent norms fails to take into account the presence of existent sociocultural norms. [4] [11] Additionally, the theory fails to explain why certain suggestions or individuals rise to normative status while others do not. [11]
The social identity theory posits that the self is a complex system made up primarily of the concept of membership or non-membership in various social groups. These groups have various moral and behavioral values and norms, and the individual's actions depend on which group membership (or non-membership) is most personally salient at the time of action. [11]
This influence is evidenced by findings that when the stated purpose and values of a group changes, the values and motives of its members also change. [34]
Crowds are an amalgam of individuals, all of whom belong to various overlapping groups. However, if the crowd is primarily related to some identifiable group (such as Christians or Hindus or Muslims or civil-rights activists), then the values of that group will dictate the crowd's action. [11]
In crowds which are more ambiguous, individuals will assume a new social identity as a member of the crowd. [4] This group membership is made more salient by confrontation with other groups – a relatively common occurrence for crowds. [4]
The group identity serves to create a set of standards for behavior; for certain groups violence is legitimate, for others it is unacceptable. [4] This standard is formed from stated values, but also from the actions of others in the crowd, and sometimes from a few in leadership-type positions. [4]
A concern with this theory is that while it explains how crowds reflect social ideas and prevailing attitudes, it does not explain the mechanisms by which crowds enact to drive social change. [11]
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions.
A social norm is a shared standard of acceptable behavior by a group. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", "attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances.
Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group, or between social groups. The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behaviour, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, leadership studies, business and managerial studies, as well as communication studies.
Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon was a leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. He is best known for his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which is considered one of the seminal works of crowd psychology.
Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist who conceived sociology as based on small psychological interactions among individuals, the fundamental forces being imitation and innovation.
Philip George Zimbardo was an American psychologist and a professor at Stanford University. He was an internationally known educator, researcher, author and media personality in psychology who authored more than 500 articles, chapters, textbooks, and trade books covering a wide range of topics, including time perspective, cognitive dissonance, the psychology of evil, persuasion, cults, deindividuation, shyness, and heroism. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which was later criticized. He authored various widely-used, introductory psychology textbooks for college students, and other notable works, including Shyness, The Lucifer Effect, and The Time Paradox. He was the founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting heroism in everyday life by training people how to resist bullying, bystanding, and negative conformity. He pioneered The Stanford Shyness Clinic in the 1970s and offered the earliest comprehensive treatment program for shyness. He was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and many awards and honors for service, teaching, research, writing, and educational media, including the Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science for his Discovering Psychology video series. He served as Western Psychological Association president in 1983 and 2001, and American Psychological Association president in 2002.
The expression collective behavior was first used by Franklin Henry Giddings and employed later by Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, Herbert Blumer, Ralph H. Turner and Lewis Killian, and Neil Smelser to refer to social processes and events which do not reflect existing social structure, but which emerge in a "spontaneous" way. Use of the term has been expanded to include reference to cells, social animals like birds and fish, and insects including ants. Collective behavior takes many forms but generally violates societal norms. Collective behavior can be tremendously destructive, as with riots or mob violence, silly, as with fads, or anywhere in between. Collective behavior is always driven by group dynamics, encouraging people to engage in acts they might consider unthinkable under typical social circumstances.
A crowd is as a group of people that have gathered for a common purpose or intent. Examples are a demonstration, a sports event, or a looting. A crowd may also simply be made up of many people going about their business in a busy area.
Herd mentality is the tendency for people’s behavior or beliefs to conform to those of the group they belong to. The concept of herd mentality has been studied and analyzed from different perspectives, including biology, psychology, and sociology. This psychological phenomenon can have profound impacts on human behavior.
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, although this is a matter of contention. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. As such, social psychologists emphasize the role of internal psychological processes. Other social scientists, such as sociologists, are more concerned with broad social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence events in a given society.
Collective mental state is generally a literary or legal term, mostly used in sociology and philosophy, to refer to the condition of someone's being-state when around others. An assessment of a collective mental state includes a description of thought processes, memory, emotions, mood, cognitive state, and energy levels, including the meta overlay of interactions between individuals.
Enrico Ferri was an Italian criminologist, socialist and student of Cesare Lombroso, the founder of the Italian school of criminology. While Lombroso researched the purported physiological factors that motivated criminals, Ferri investigated social and economic aspects. He served as editor of the socialist daily Avanti! and, in 1884, saw his book Criminal Sociology published. Later, his work served as the basis for Argentina’s penal code of 1921. Although at first he rejected the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Ferri later became one of Mussolini and his National Fascist Party's main external supporters.
Deviance or the sociology of deviance explores the actions and/or behaviors that violate social norms across formally enacted rules as well as informal violations of social norms. Although deviance may have a negative connotation, the violation of social norms is not always a negative action; positive deviation exists in some situations. Although a norm is violated, a behavior can still be classified as positive or acceptable.
The social identity model of deindividuation effects is a theory developed in social psychology and communication studies. SIDE explains the effects of anonymity and identifiability on group behavior. It has become one of several theories of technology that describe social effects of computer-mediated communication.
Behavioral contagion is a form of social contagion involving the spread of behavior through a group. It refers to the propensity for a person to copy a certain behavior of others who are either in the vicinity, or whom they have been exposed to. The term was originally used by Gustave Le Bon in his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind to explain undesirable aspects of behavior of people in crowds. In the digital age, behavioral contagion is also concerned with the spread of online behavior and information. A variety of behavioral contagion mechanisms were incorporated in models of collective human behavior.
Herd behavior is the behavior of individuals in a group acting collectively without centralized direction. Herd behavior occurs in animals in herds, packs, bird flocks, fish schools and so on, as well as in humans. Voting, demonstrations, riots, general strikes, sporting events, religious gatherings, everyday decision-making, judgement and opinion-forming, are all forms of human-based herd behavior.
Crowd manipulation is the intentional or unwitting use of techniques based on the principles of crowd psychology to engage, control, or influence the desires of a crowd in order to direct its behavior toward a specific action. This practice is common to religion, politics and business and can facilitate the approval or disapproval or indifference to a person, policy, or product. The ethicality of crowd manipulation is commonly questioned.
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind is a book authored by Gustave Le Bon that was first published in 1895.
Baiting crowd is a form of collective aggression; this is a situation where a group of individuals unify their aggression, while they may not even know each other, towards another individual or group.
Crowd collapses and crowd crushes are catastrophic incidents that can occur when a body of people becomes dangerously overcrowded. When numbers are up to about five people per square meter, the environment may feel cramped but manageable; when numbers reach between eight and ten people per square meter, individuals become pressed against each other and may be swept along against their will by the motion of the crowd. Under these conditions, the crowd may undergo a progressive collapse where the pressure pushes people off their feet, resulting in people being trampled or crushed by the weight of other people falling on top of them. At even higher densities, the pressure on each individual can cause them to be crushed or asphyxiated while still upright.
Deindividuation, or the loss of personal identity within a crowd, can lead normal, law-abiding people to do terrible things. In 1885, Gustave Le Bon argued that people lost their sense of personal responsibility when in a crowd, which in turn led to impulsive and hedonistic behavior. [...] While anonymity plays a role in deindividuation, other factors are also at work. Diffusion of responsibility can make an important contribution.
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