The Individual in the Crowd

The Individual in the Crowd

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THE INTEGRATIVE TENDENCY

We can now look at the crowd phenomenon from the individual’s point of view because it follows that, if a crowd is to form, individual members must, in some sense, ‘want’ to join and be willing to conform to behavioural standards imposed by others. No group – and especially not a crowd – can exist unless each group member alters their behaviour to conform to the will of the majority. In other words, there must be a basis for the integrative tendency, or the tendency to devote oneself to a group.

Theoretically, we can observe three aspects to this phenomenon, namely:

 identification with the crowd;

 acceptance of the crowd’s belief system;

 submission to the authority of a leader.

IDENTIFICATION

There is, indeed, a well-researched predisposition for individuals to reject individuals in other groups, to accept the judgement of the majority in the group to which they belong, and to accept the instructions of a person (or persons) representing authority. In a series of experiments by Henri Tajfel at Bristol University, it was shown that groups of schoolboys aged 14 to 15 could have their behaviour altered merely by telling them that they belonged to a particular group – even an unknown group. Specifically, the schoolboys would automatically associate themselves with other members of the same group, would provide active support for that group and would take every opportunity to disadvantage members of other groups. These phenomena occurred despite the fact that no indication was given to the schoolboys about the purpose or qualities of the groups.

BELIEFS

It seems that uncritical acceptance of group assumptions/beliefs has its foundation in the subconscious need to belong, or not to be seen as different. For example, experiments conducted in 1956 by Solomon Asch at Harvard showed that, when matching the length of a line with one of three other lines, subjects could have their performance measurably altered by group pressures. When asked to match the length of a line with one of three other lines in isolation from others, participants made a mistake less than 1 per cent of the time. However, when placed in a group that had been instructed beforehand to claim that mismatched lines were actually the same, 75 per cent of participants agreed with the majority. This was true even when the actual difference between the lines was very significant. Worryingly, Asch also found that although some participants lacked the nerve to disagree with the majority, some maintained that they had actually seen the mismatched lines as being equal and some doubted their own perceptions.

SELF-AWARENESS AND CONFORMITY ENFORCEMENT

These general conclusions have been confirmed by research conducted at the University of Illinois by Ed Diener. He found that the most important factor in group behaviour was the suppression of self-awareness and, therefore, of self-regulation. In one particular piece of research, Diener compared behaviour under three different laboratory test conditions:

where individuals were self-aware and isolated from group influences;

where individuals were non-self-aware, but were still isolated from group influences; and

where individuals were both non-self-aware and involved in a group environment.

THE CROWD LEADER

Identification with other members of the crowd and an acceptance of the crowd’s belief system is stimulated by each member’s willingness to obey a crowd leader. The importance of a leader for crowd dynamics was Sigmund Freud’s major contribution to the debate, and is based on his idea of a ‘parent substitute’. Specifically, Freud argued that a large group (or crowd) would follow its leader because that leader personified certain ideals and objectives for the group. Group members would essentially disable themselves by projecting their own capacities for thought, decision making and responsibility taking on to the leader.

The crowd leader acts as the main interpreter of new information from the environment, determines the appropriate tactical response and directs strategy. Leaders may be dictatorial or democratic, they may be constructive or destructive, but they will always command the attention of each of the crowd members. However, leadership may manifest in a number of different guises. On the one hand, it may be obvious, in the sense that it is vested in a particular individual or in a subgroup of people (such as a committee or board of directors). On the other hand, it may be covert. It may, for example, be vested in the democratic decision of the group itself or in the shared system of beliefs held by members of the crowd, and the code of conduct it engenders. Covert leadership, however, almost certainly requires some form of ‘totem’ on which the crowd can focus its attention. Throughout history, crowds have been responsive to national flags, figureheads, icons and statues.

THE FINDINGS OF STANLEY MILGRAM

The classic experiment to discover the limit to which people would be obedient to authority was conducted by Dr Stanley Milgram of Yale University. In the experiment, the subjects were ordered to inflict pain on an innocent victim in the interests of an important cause. Authority (or the leader and representative of a group belief system) was represented by a scientist in a white coat who would continually urge the subject to proceed with administering electric shocks to a third person. In fact, there was no electric shock involved at all: the subject did not know it, but the third person (the victim) merely behaved as if there had been one.

At all stages throughout the experiment, the subject was made aware of the effect of their actions, both by a dial on the electric shock machine (which indicated the voltage being administered and the degree of danger involved therewith), and by the screams and protests of the victim strapped into a chair. Milgram found that over 60 per cent of the subjects were prepared to obey instructions to administer the highest and most lethal dose of electricity, even after the victim had given up screaming and was, to all intents and purposes, comatose.

ALTRUISM AND CONFLICT

In the previous chapter, it was noted that the structure of the human brain lends itself to the emergence of non-rational responses to perceived threats of any kind. In particular, the brain stem and the limbic system are subject to a significant stimulus. Significantly, the arousal of these two subsystems at the expense of the neocortex can degrade human behaviour to the extent that some degree of animal- like ‘herd’ behaviour materializes. This is the phenomenon of the crowd.

There are, obviously, different degrees of intensity of crowd behaviour, but its hallmark is non-rational and emotional behaviour, common to a number of individuals acting together. It follows, too, that once a crowd has been catalyzed, the left pre-frontal lobe of the neocortex is even less likely to operate effectively. As a result, the amygdala of each crowd member is given an even freer rein.

The results – as researchers such as Diener and Milgram have verified – can be frightening. A crowd led by a strong leader can be a truly potent force. First, people within a crowd develop a sense of altruism towards other crowd members that is very strong. (Sometimes, indeed, it is so strong that, as Emile Durkheim found, it can result in suicide.) Second, the crowd can achieve objectives using methods that more self-aware individuals would regard as being totally unacceptable. It is not surprising, therefore, that people are more likely to be involved in states of conflict as group members than as individuals. Third, and as a corollary, it follows that conflict (or stress) is a perfect catalyst for the formation of a crowd. If, for some reason, an imbalance develops between two groups, each group member will have common cause with other members of the same group in protecting the autonomy of that group. The paramount need of each group may then release the aggressiveness in, or relax constraints on, each individual.

SPLITTING AND PROJECTION

There is a broad question about what encourages, or allows, individuals actively to participate in aggressive, destructive crowd behaviour when they might not otherwise do so. One factor is the need to belong. For many, if not all, crowd participants, the sense of belonging totally to a higher psychological construct is a transcendental experience: ego boundaries collapse and are invaded by group beliefs, personal responsibility is removed and anxiety is eliminated. A second factor is the way that the human psyche deals with potentially conflicting emotions. Here, an individual disowns the unacceptable side of his or her psyche and projects it out on to others. The result is a toxic combination of infallibility on the one hand and hatred and fear of an ‘enemy’ on the other, and it is all too easy to kill and maim ‘subhuman others’. Unfortunately, the fact that these processes occur in the subconscious mind makes it all too easy to deny that they exist in the first place.

CONCLUSION

The conclusions of this chapter are simple, but profound. Membership of a group in general, or of a crowd in particular, involves the abrogation, to some degree, of personal responsibility – that is, people act differently as crowd participants than they do as independent individuals. A crowd as a whole tends to behave in a non-rational, emotional way in pursuit of its objectives and forces its members to do likewise. The ability of a crowd to organize its members in this way is particularly pronounced under conditions of conflict when the autonomy of the crowd is in some way threatened. These observations go some way towards explaining some of the less attractive features of the human condition. They explain, for example, why armies of otherwise rational and humane men are prepared to go to war; they offer an explanation of why avowedly religious groups have tortured and murdered in pursuit of doctrinal purity; they explain why trade union members have been willing to destroy the companies that they work for rather than surrender any union ‘rights’. The list is endless, and is the more depressing for it.

However, the purpose of this book is other than to bemoan the fate of humanity. Up to now, Part One has presented a body of theory that explains, essentially, why group behaviour is a ubiquitous feature of the human condition. For the vast majority of people, some form of group pressure provides a major motivating force in all their social, economic and political activities. Such pressure exists in such diverse structures as friendly societies, corporations and religions. It is more intense in sports teams and is at its most intense under combat conditions. As we shall demonstrate, the crowd phenomenon also exists in financial markets.

So far we have only explained why crowds exist. We have not yet shown how crowds behave. Let us, therefore, take one further step towards the primary purposes of this book by analyzing the dynamics of a crowd system.

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Forecasting Financial Markets,

Anthony Plummer