Crowd psychology
[2][3] Notable theorists in crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904), and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).
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]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.
[10] The attitude towards crowds underwent an adjustment with the publication of Hippolyte Taine's six-volume The Origins of Contemporary France (1875).
For example, in the beginning of the socialist movement crowds were asked to put on their Sunday dress and march silently down the street.
[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.
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.
[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.
"[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.
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.
[4] Philip Zimbardo also did not view deindividuation exclusively as a group phenomenon, and applied the concept to suicide, murder, and interpersonal hostility.
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.
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.
[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.
An antisocial leader can incite violent action, but an influential voice of non-violence in a crowd can lead to a mass sit-in.
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).
