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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 ...
The general characteristics of crowds are to be met with in parliamentary assemblies: intellectual simplicity, irritability, suggestibility, the exaggeration of the sentiments and the preponderating influence of a few leaders…It is terrible at times to think of the power that strong conviction combined with extreme narrowness of mind gives a ...
The idea of a "group mind" or "mob behavior" was first put forward by 19th-century social psychologists Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon.Herd behavior in human societies has also been studied by Sigmund Freud and Wilfred Trotter, whose book Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War is a classic in the field of social psychology.
George Lachmann Mosse claimed that fascist theories of leadership that emerged during the 1920s owed much to Le Bon's theories of crowd psychology. Adolf Hitler is known to have read The Crowd and in Mein Kampf drew on the propaganda techniques proposed by Le Bon. [46] [47] Benito Mussolini also made a careful study of Le Bon. [48]
Crowds serve an essential purpose in adolescent identity development, shaping individual values, behavior, and personal and peer expectations."[One's group] is often tantamount to one's own provisional identity;" [9] the individual defines herself by the crowd she sees herself fitting into.
Shimmering behaviour of Apis dorsata (giant honeybees). A group of animals fleeing from a predator shows the nature of herd behavior, for example in 1971, in the oft-cited article "Geometry for the Selfish Herd", evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton asserted that each individual group member reduces the danger to itself by moving as close as possible to the center of the fleeing group.
Shielded by anonymity, large numbers of people abandon personal responsibility and surrender to the contagious emotions of the crowd. A crowd thus assumes a life of its own, stirring up emotions and driving people toward irrational, even violent action. [10] Le Bon's theory, although one of the earliest explanations of crowd behavior, is still ...
Including the individual in "the public" (or "the crowd" or "the herd") or subsuming a human being as simply a member of a species is a reduction of the true meaning of life for individuals. What philosophy or politics try to do is to categorize and pigeonhole individuals by group characteristics, each with their own individual differences.