The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind is a classic and fascinating crowd psychology study authored by Gustave Le Bon and first published in 1895. In the book Le Bon claims that there are several characteristics of crowd psychology: impulsiveness irritability incapacity to reason the absence of judgement of the critical spirit the exaggeration of sentiments and others...Crowd psychology also known as mob psychology is a branch of social psychology. Social psychologists have developed several theories for explaining the ways in which the psychology of a crowd differs from and interacts with that of the individuals within it. Major theorists in crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon Gabriel Tarde Sigmund Freud and Steve Reicher. This field relates to the behaviors and thought processes of both the individual crowd members and the crowd as an entity.Crowd behavior is heavily influenced by the loss of responsibility of the individual and the impression of universality of behavior both of which increase with the size of the crowd. The psychological study of crowd phenomena was documented decades prior to 1900 as European culture was imbued with thoughts of the fin de siècle. This modern urban culture perceived that they were living in a new and different age. They witnessed marvelous new inventions and experienced life in new ways. The population now living in densely packed industrialized cities such as Milan and Paris witnessed the development of the light bulb radio photography moving-picture shows the telegraph the bicycle the telephone and the railroad system. They experienced a faster pace of life and viewed human life as segmented so they designated each of these phases of life with a new name. They created new concepts like the Adolescent Kindergarten the Vacation camping in Nature the 5-minute segment and Travel for the sake of pleasure as a leisure class to describe these new ways of life. Likewise the abstract concept of the Crowd grew as a new phenomenon simultaneously in Paris France and Milan the largest city in the Kingdom of Italy. Legal reformers motivated by Darwins evolutionary theory particularly in the Kingdom of Italy argued that the social and legal systems of Europe had been founded on antiquated notions of natural reason or Christian morality and ignored the irrevocable biology laws of human nature.