被希特勒,墨索里尼和戴高乐等人崇尚的此公提出的群氓课题,如何解释今天的网民,是一个饶有兴趣的课题。
期望这里朋友来说说。
自立
被压倒的理性——读《乌合之众——大众心理研究》
吴茂华
2007-01-05 08:36:01 阅读 次
天涯社区
这是两本很有意思的书,一本是法国人勒邦著的《乌合之众——大众心理研究》,另一本是奥地利人威尔海姆·赖希著的《法西斯群众心理学》。前者以十八世纪法国大革命为背景,分析研究社会历史运动中作为主体参与的群众,他们的行为、心理的诸般特征,更多具有现象学意义。后者则以希特勒纳粹时代为背景,兼及苏联斯大林时期,探索极权制度中在谎言和恐惧状态下生存的普通群众性格心理法西斯化过程呈现的非理性性质,并深入剖析其产生的生物性缘由,更多具有社会哲学价值。两本书各有精义秘笈之处,却又互印连类而学理相通,都具有实证研究之价值。
人是世界上最复杂的动物,理智与情感、思想与灵魂、先天遗传与后天环境交替纠结在一起,支配着人的行为。现代心理学有一“情商”之说,认为在人的性格中支配其行为的情感、意志、灵魂等力量大于聪明、才智的“智商”的力量。性格即命运,优劣成败的人生例子,我们不难于现实生活中找到。昆德拉写过一本叫《生活在别处》的有名小说,描述一个抒情浪漫的青年诗人人生追求,最后却沦为向警察告密的告密者。昆德拉思考的是浪漫主义与专制政治隐秘的情感联系。他说道:“抒情状态是人类的境况。”这就是说,不仅是浪漫之情,而且追求的激情、豪情、失败痛苦的悲情,乃至怨恨愤怒之情、七情六欲,都是人类的宿命。它们竟支配人生的始终。
“情商”重于“智商”的现象,不仅于个体,人类群体概莫能外。不管是阅读历史书本,还是从现实生活之经验观察,凡有群体行为发生之处,特别是事关重大社会政治经济事件,莫不是场面汹汹。激烈的冲动、狂热的感情,有如泛滥的洪水、狂奔的野马,那种情绪压倒理智、盲目冲动代替思考的状态,被心理学家荣格称为“兽性的上层建筑”。对此无理性局面以及造成的恶果,凡经历过自上世纪五十年代以来大小政治运动或“文革”的国人,恐怕莫不有深刻的记忆、切身的体会。
集体无意识,是群体行为发生时的基本心理状态,勒邦在其书中对此有着透辟的论述。他甚至说:“群众等同于无意识集体。因为无意识,所以力量强大。”这里的“无意识”指理性缺乏、推理能力低下、少有深思熟虑而混沌懵懂。勒邦在书中举出法国大革命时期的群众运动发生的大量事例,论述了群众行为的这种心理特征。如1792年法国历史上有名的大屠杀事件。当时,在大革命精神的感召下,巴黎成千上万市民几天之内虐杀尽关在监狱里的僧侣贵族一千五百多人,连十二三岁的孩子也不放过。更不可思议的是,在极刑现场,妇女们以一睹贵族受刑为荣。这些平时里的店员伙计、家庭主妇,都相信自己的正义行为是在消灭“共和国的敌人”。因此,勒邦认为,参与社会事件中的群众,感情无论善恶,皆夸张真率、冲动易变、缺少理智,更多受生物本能影响,有如原始人,易被煽动鼓舞。当情感的磁场在人群中迅疾传染蔓延积累到一定的量时,人非常容易流于暴戾。此时若稍加暗示或鼓动甚而导致犯罪,群众还自以为是高尚之举。而行动中的个人于对象并无明确的恩怨仇愤,在无意识状态下作恶犯罪,所谓“谋杀无动机”(昆德拉语),就是一股极为疯狂可怕的力量。
群体行为还有一重大心理特征,就是崇尚威势,迷信权威人物。社会中大多数处于中下层地位的群众,大多地位卑微,心理狭窄脆弱,对超出自身生活经验的一般问题不甚了解,不辨真伪,希望听从权威的意见。他们甚至不在乎“说什么”,而在乎持此说之人物的地位,因为群众需要服从权威的指导。因而凡有大众迷信、偶像崇拜之处,群众必然情令智昏匍匐在地,具有一种类似于宗教的极端情感与形式。就像原始初民需要神话,群众潜意识中也需要一个具有神格的伟人。所以不管是拿破仑的凯旋,还是希特勒的讲演、斯大林的检阅等,都是“群众需要上帝,我们就造出一个上帝”的狂热荒谬之举。古往今来的君主枭雄、教主领袖,乃至市井中有号召力之人,都对群众这种心理有着准确的把握,他们无意间成为绝好的心理学家。这正是他们具有统率号召力的原因。
勒邦在书中说道:“每个时代的群体杰出领袖,尤其是革命时期的领袖,大多才疏学浅,他们往往勇气超过才智。才智过多甚至会给领袖带来障碍,但正是这些才智有限的人给世界带来最大影响。”翻开历史书籍,这种出身江湖、强人领袖成功夺取社稷重器的例子遍布于世界各个国家和民族。这类群众领袖的高明不仅在于他们擅长谋略权术,还在于擅用巧妙的宣传和演说把自己打扮神化成伟人救星、明主英雄,窃取国家、民族、真理、革命的名义煽动群众,让他们相信为其谋利,相信其幸福与快乐在于崇拜与服从之中,役使他们赴死就义,心甘情愿在所不辞。
群众中有无智者?群众为什么会如此容易受欺骗?他们在为人驱使被利用时,甚至在大多数时候,为什么不知道自身的行为常与其利益相背离?这岂止一句“愚昧”、“糊涂”说得清 当群体行为发生时,其中个体意识处于一种什么样的状态?关于这些,两本书的作者都有解读。勒邦认为,群众意识有“趋同一致律”,即在特定事件群众集结、情感亢奋昂扬的场面中,个人思想感情必遭弱化乃至泯灭,会不自觉地加入到集体意识中去。即使平时独处冷静清醒的佼佼者,一旦汇入群体,个人都会被感性所支配,被群体所裹挟,意识趋于群众的平均水平。在这种情形下,一个受过教育的绅士和伙夫修鞋匠的心理意识并无多大差别。再者,当群体行为发生时,其中的个人会卸去责任感,有一种冲破压抑、胆大包天、罚不责众的快感。这种快感又被英国哲学家罗素解释为权力感。罗素在其《权力论》中说道:“在目标一致的热烈集会上,群众有一种热情和安全交织的得意感。这种共有的情绪越发强烈,直到排除一切其他情感,只剩下一种因‘自我’倍增而产生的权力兴奋感。集体兴奋是绝好的麻醉。其间,理智、人道、甚至自我保护很容易被遗忘。这时候,残忍的屠杀和英勇殉难同样是可能的。”这就是当情绪和非理性因素处支配地位时,集体无意识力量异常强大,很少有个人能与之抗衡的原因。除此而外,人类群体的盲目趋同现象,犹如原野上生存奔跑的马群或牛群,恐怕还有祖先遗传的动物本能,潜在地影响着人们心理和行为。
和勒邦从现象层面研究不同,赖希在他的《法西斯群众心理学》一书里,是从人的性格结构方面入手对其进行深入探讨的。
赖希认为,人的性格分三个层次。第一层为表层,表现为含蓄、有礼、有同情心、讲道德、负责任,但多是虚伪的。第二层为中层,表现为残忍、贪婪、好色、嫉妒、虐待狂。这是人的第二动力,是原始生物欲望的派生物,所谓“无意识”正在于此。第三层是深层,又叫生物核心,表现为诚实、善意、勤奋、合作。深层性格是人自然健康的基础,产生“力比多”冲动。但“力比多”经过第二层便扭曲为反常。第一层相对应的是社会意识形态中的文明教化、道德理想精神。第二层表现于现实生活中的“小人精神”。第三层是文化艺术、科学创造的源头。赖希指出,这是人身上的怪物,脱掉修养的外衣,最先显露的便是人这种反常的性格。而小人精神来自人的情感欲望,是一种既渴望威权又希望造反的精神。这就是在许许多多群众运动、造反的过程中,千百万群众个体表现出来的性格。
赖希认为,正是这人身上的怪物、小人精神构成了法西斯主义的精神内核。而且每一个人身上都有法西斯主义的情感因素,法西斯主义是普通人性格结构有组织的政治表现。明乎此,我们也就不难理解希特勒法西斯主义当时为什么得到德国人民普遍拥戴的原因了。
他指出:“一个元首或一种观念的提倡者,只有当他个人的观点、意识、纲领与广大个体的心理结构相类似时,才能取得成功。”他进一步指出,对于法西斯主义,不能将其看做一个希特勒或墨索里尼的行为,也不能仅当成德国人日本人的民族特性,它渗透到人类所有民族的有机体中,是被压抑的卑微者既反抗又崇拜强权的一种基本情感态度。赖希于七十年前在他的书中表述的这一观点,不幸被后来发生于各个国家和民族的大小战争、屠杀、暴行所证实。从奥斯威辛的焚尸炉到斯大林时期的清剿运动,从科索沃、卢旺达的种族灭绝到巴以冲突,直至当今频繁发生于世界各地的恐怖主义的事件,这些群体行为大规模的发生,除了现实政治经济地理的直接原因外,我们难道不应该再寻找一下人类自身的缘由吗﹖对此,一位奥地利动物学家、现代行为学家洛伦兹曾经有一精辟论述:“人的行为,尤其是集团、国家、阶级、民族间的争斗行为,绝不单由理念、文化传统或利益所决定,它还要顺从本能行为的一切法则,那就是动物性法则。”
从现实生活的角度来看,人类社会普遍发生的杀人强奸等侵犯他人的暴力行为,虽属少数人犯罪,但探索其性格的深层因素,一定具有恃强凌弱、侵害他人的兽性心理,满足于随意处置他人的权欲性快感。就是在普通人中,那种崇尚威权,以暴力残酷为壮伟磅礴,并为之叫好的荒谬心理例子也随处可见。远的不说,请看看“基地”组织制造的纽约“9·11”、西班牙“3·11”弥天惨案吧,就可想而知。基地组织屠杀成百上千生灵后,在互联网上有那么多国人同胞特别是青年人竟然为恐怖主义的拉登叫好,称其为反美反帝斗士。不管他们是否意识到,这些欢呼者心里装的是国家至上的观念、民族主义的意识形态,完全无视那些无辜死伤的几千人生命的权利,肆无忌惮的语言暴力则表现出的是一种嗜血的快感和心理。太多的事实告诉人们:法西斯精神普遍深植于人的动物性中。
历史和现实的经验告诉人们,以巧妙的伎俩雄辩演说,来迎合众人浅薄心理,慑服人心为要术,是领袖人物、群众操控者的基本手段。其实他们并非需要掌握什么了不得的理论,只要用一些具有煽动性标语口号或诗一般的语言,开动其控制的宣传机器长久反复的灌输,调动群众的情绪或欲望,便会达到统率思想征服民众的目的。希特勒一再强调,不能靠论证、证据和知识来赢得群众,只能靠感情和信仰。总之,舆论宣传于一切独裁统治是重要而不可或缺的方针政策。二十世纪三十年代德国纳粹的歌曲就这样唱道:
我们是党徽的军队
高举着红旗
为了德国的工人
我们铺设通向自由的道路
希特勒讲演时说道:
“……作为国家社会主义者,我们在旗帜上看到了纲领,看到了国家主义的观念。在党徽中看到了为雅利安人斗争的使命,同样看到了创造性劳动观念的胜利。这一胜利一直并且永远是反犹太人的。”
差不多与此同时,可再看看1935年3月19日苏联《真理报》一篇题为“苏维埃爱国主义”文章的摘要:
苏维埃爱国主义——对自己祖国无限的爱无条件的忠诚的炽热感情,对祖国命运最深刻的责任感,在我们心中奔腾。在我们社会主义祖国里,人民的利益和祖国及其政府的利益不可分。苏维埃爱国主义激情来自这样一个事实:在苏维埃党的领导下,人民塑造自己的生活。只有现在,我们美丽富饶的祖国才向劳动人民敞开。
别小看这些语无伦次大言不惭的口号、毫无实质性内容的豪言壮语,它虽然和一个人对自己祖国与民族真正自然热爱的感情丝毫无关,但当其成为一种强势话语时,会流行传染成一场政治性情感瘟疫,具有“无意识”的巨大力量。这便是宣传造势的秘密。精神分析学中有“自居作用”之说,即一个人感到和另一个人的观念、信仰等一致时,便采取这个人的态度,并在幻想中把自己摆在他人的位置上。赖希先生在对纳粹德国和苏联的大量宣传内容和方式进行考察研究后,揭示出正是这种“自居作用”构成了群众心理的现实基础,即个人越觉得无能、越卑微,就越需要崇拜威权;越感到自身无价值,就越需要移情于集体和大人物,把自身等同于民族的伟大、国家的荣誉,等同于领袖的崇高。当时的德国人民对国家、元首、政府拥戴的态度可以概括为:我就是国家、民族、权威,甚至每一个德国人在潜意识里都自认为是小希特勒。元首的思想就成为德国人的思想,纳粹党的意志就是德国人的意志。这种心理感觉上的置换,潜意识的移情,效果可谓巨大而显著。“没有个人的自大,只有合群的自大”(鲁迅),这种“小人精神”,自卑与自大的非理性情感混合物,正是法西斯民族主义的心理土壤。本来民族情感应该有正常与非正常之分,热爱自己民族的传统、文化是一种正常的感情;而无限崇奉本民族的一切,导致歇斯底里地排外、扩张却是一种非理性的原始感情。并且它往往是被诱导、操纵的结果。这种非理性的原始情感使人个性泯灭,失去正常思考能力,易沦为野心家和意识形态的工具。
赖希与勒邦在其研究群众心理的书中得出一个共同的结论,即群众是无意识的,他们是完全可以被塑造的。有什么样的国家,就有什么样的人民;反过来也一样,有什么样的人民,就有什么样的国家。所以,如果一种社会的主流意识形态呈现非理性,也会使群众的性格结构成为非理性状态。这不但被法国、德国的历史所证实,也被二战以后世界上大大小小独裁国家统治的现实所证实,而且正在被当今世界上发生的层出不穷的战争和暴力与恐怖主义行为所印证。独裁与专制、战争与暴力是人类的毒瘤,是社会生活中最大的非理性行为。被这种情形笼罩下的民众容易认为自己是生活在天国之邦的蚁民或子民。勒邦与赖希这两本研究群众心理学的著作,其实际意义就在于唤醒每一个普通人,警惕自身,认识自己,拒绝为野心家和反动势力所利用,保持我们的公民人格,做一个清醒的自由人。
(〔法〕古斯塔夫·勒邦著:《乌合之众——大众心理研究》,冯克利译,中央编译出版社2000年版;〔奥〕威尔海姆·赖希著:《法西斯群众心理学》,张峰译,重庆出版社1990年版)
- posted on 02/08/2007
我并不赞同勒邦的分析。我认为,有一些原因使得好多人精神错乱了,而在某种得以发泄的场合暴露出来。战争,暴乱等等,都反映了这种集体性质的问题 -- 原始人性遭到压抑。这种压抑是个人对自己的原始人性(我称之为“亚当”)的几乎极端的反对。具体原因等我有时间时再聊。
原始人性并不是如同勒邦所说的“动物性,野蛮暴力”的,而原是与宇宙自然合在一起。正是所谓的一些“理性”让人产生某种自我而脱离了自然,也从整体感觉中分裂出来,从而使得这些人会因为这自我以及与此自我相联系的一个集体而做出过激行为,精神错乱并在得不到控制时发泄出来,造成对其他人或其他集体的残暴迫害。
再聊。:)
- posted on 02/09/2007
理性非理性,整体个体。。。。。。都是一种双刃剑。梦冉所言又是很对——至少我个人以为很对。
很好的观点,如果可以展开更好。
但是,在观察这个问题的时候,也许会有阶段性的主要倾向可以选择。比如说,在儒学科层制度中,就缺少个人主义这种倾向和特征,这正是谈论中国文化的时候,常常提到的症结所在——约翰。穆勒(密尔)就是这个看法,他的 论自由 里就是这样看法。
个人主义是不是要结伴群社论,这个课题谈得很多。
所以,我以为中国人现在不宜过度谈论集体主义和儒家学说,主要要探讨个性自由问题。这个个性自由,不是自由泛滥论,而是要规范自由主义行为的可能性和约束力。
比如,你要说话,这时候,你要自我训练成为一个作家,并且享受你自己可以开店出版书籍,那种自由。
又比如,我感兴趣办报纸,苦于这个梦想的不可能性,但是,如果体制变化,我们一茬人,也许真的可以办报。等等。
这就比在玛雅这里乱讲话,要更加正式,严肃,有效。
现在是没办法的,只能在此乱讲一通,叫做 昆达理尼/ Kundalini 的释放吧(见『傅科摆』)。 - posted on 02/09/2007
‘集体无意识’用来描写纳粹、文革、伊朗革命、网民暴乱等情形不是一个很准确的词。更准确的词应该是‘群众歇斯底里’ mass hysteria。
很同意自立的这些说法。
zili wrote:
理性非理性,整体个体。。。。。。都是一种双刃剑。梦冉所言又是很对——至少我个人以为很对。
很好的观点,如果可以展开更好。
但是,在观察这个问题的时候,也许会有阶段性的主要倾向可以选择。比如说,在儒学科层制度中,就缺少个人主义这种倾向和特征,这正是谈论中国文化的时候,常常提到的症结所在——约翰。穆勒(密尔)就是这个看法,他的 论自由 里就是这样看法。
个人主义是不是要结伴群社论,这个课题谈得很多。
所以,我以为中国人现在不宜过度谈论集体主义和儒家学说,主要要探讨个性自由问题。这个个性自由,不是自由泛滥论,而是要规范自由主义行为的可能性和约束力。
比如,你要说话,这时候,你要自我训练成为一个作家,并且享受你自己可以开店出版书籍,那种自由。
又比如,我感兴趣办报纸,苦于这个梦想的不可能性,但是,如果体制变化,我们一茬人,也许真的可以办报。等等。
这就比在玛雅这里乱讲话,要更加正式,严肃,有效。
现在是没办法的,只能在此乱讲一通,叫做 昆达理尼/ Kundalini 的释放吧(见『傅科摆』)。 - posted on 02/09/2007
赖希认为,人的性格分三个层次。第一层为表层,表现为含蓄、有礼、有同情心、讲道德、负责任,但多是虚伪的。第二层为中层,表现为残忍、贪婪、好色、嫉妒、虐待狂。这是人的第二动力,是原始生物欲望的派生物,所谓“无意识”正在于此。第三层是深层,又叫生物核心,表现为诚实、善意、勤奋、合作。
这第一层与第三层好象有些重叠的。
就象前面说的,“人”真是一个很难着磨的东西。
人是世界上最复杂的动物,理智与情感、思想与灵魂、先天遗传与后天环境交替纠结在一起,支配着人的行为。现代心理学有一“情商”之说,认为在人的性格中支配其行为的情感、意志、灵魂等力量大于聪明、才智的“智商”的力量。性格即命运,优劣成败的人生例子,我们不难于现实生活中找到。
但是,在观察这个问题的时候,也许会有阶段性的主要倾向可以选择。比如说,在儒学科层制度中,就缺少个人主义这种倾向和特征,这正是谈论中国文化的时候,常常提到的症结所在——约翰。穆勒(密尔)就是这个看法,他的 论自由 里就是这样看法。
我最近对“自由”有些新体悟,觉得社会宏观的结构能力是保证“自
由”的前提。这样,中世纪不自由,清朝文字狱可能多理解一点。
个人主义是不是要结伴群社论,这个课题谈得很多。
所以,我以为中国人现在不宜过度谈论集体主义和儒家学说,主要要探讨个性自由问题。这个个性自由,不是自由泛滥论,而是要规范自由主义行为的可能性和约束力。
比如,你要说话,这时候,你要自我训练成为一个作家,并且享受你自己可以开店出版书籍,那种自由。
训练说话,这个是很重要的。
比如对待官僚主义,对待有一帮智襄的政客。情绪主义肯定不能,得
有些修辞学,得有些强硬的逻辑。
- posted on 02/09/2007
这两位及其著作都是古董了,是神吹时代的产物。怎么国人又挖出来当科学前沿?好在盲众行为比较复杂,难以实验研究。大家只能拍脑袋讲常识了。
勒邦是第一人,讲出来的东西还较符合常识。赖希之辈就更离奇了。下面提供点资料补补课。
collective behaviour
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
collective behaviour
the kinds of activities engaged in by sizable but loosely organized groups of people. Episodes of collective behaviour tend to be quite spontaneous, resulting from an experience shared by the members of the group that engenders a sense of common interest and identity. The informality of the group's structure is the main source of the frequent unpredictability of collective behaviour.
Included in collective behaviour are the activities of people in crowds, panics, fads, fashions, crazes, publics, cults, and followings as well as more organized phenomena, such as reform and revolutionary social movements. Because it emphasizes groups, the study of collective behaviour is different from the study of individual behaviour, although inquiries into the motivations and attitudes of the individuals in these groupings are often carried out. Collective behaviour resembles organized group behaviour in that it consists of people acting together; but it is more spontaneous—and consequently more volatile and less predictable—than is behaviour in groups that have well-established rules and traditions specifying their purposes, membership, leadership, and method of operation.
The U.S. sociologist Robert E. Park, who coined the term collective behaviour, defined it as “the behavior of individuals under the influence of an impulse that is common and collective, an impulse, in other words, that is the result of social interaction.” He emphasized that participants in crowds, fads, or other forms of collective behaviour share an attitude or behave alike, not because of an established rule or the force of authority, and not because as individuals they have the same attitudes, but because of a distinctive group process.
The absence of formal rules by which to distinguish between members and outsiders, to identify leaders, to establish the aims of the collectivity, to set acceptable limits of behaviour for members, and to specify how collective decisions are to be made accounts for the volatility of collective behaviour. The leader of a mob can become the object of the mob's hatred in a matter of minutes; a fashion leader can suddenly become passé.
Although agreeing that collective behaviour does not generally adhere to everyday rules, some investigators emphasize the emergence of rules and patterns within the collectivity that are related to the surrounding social structure. The U.S. psychologist Ralph H. Turner and the U.S. sociologist Lewis M. Killian define collective behaviour on the basis of “the spontaneous development of norms and organization which contradict or reinterpret the norms and organization of society.” Somewhat similar is the U.S. sociologist Neil J. Smelser's definition: “mobilization on the basis of a belief which redefines social action.” The distinctive belief—which is a generalized conception of events and of the members' relationships to them—supplies the basis for the development of a distinctive and stable organization within the collectivity. But Smelser's definition points attention, in a way that other definitions do not, toward the unique manner in which members perceive reality; without such a view a group of people would not be engaged in collective behaviour.
The U.S. sociologist Herbert Blumer determined a desire for social change in collective behaviour, as expressed in his definition: “a collective enterprise to establish a new order of life.” This definition, however, excludes many of the temporary escapes from conventional life through revelry and orgies, punitive actions such as lynchings, and panics, which are not oriented to any kind of reconstruction of social life or society. Most students of collective behaviour, however, would not restrict the field so severely.
Elementary forms of collective behaviour
Regardless of where or how collective behaviour develops, it requires some kind of preparation. In organized groups there are rituals, such as personal introductions, the toastmaster's humour, and group singing, to facilitate the transition from individual action to group interaction. People may act together efficiently if they have been prepared for a pattern of behaviour such as a fire drill, but the result is organized rather than collective behaviour. Lacking organization, people must first become sensitized to and begin to communicate with one another. These processes of sensitization and communication have been called elementary collective behaviour. Three important elementary forms are milling, rumour, and social unrest.
Milling
Prior to most instances of collective behaviour there is a period during which people move about in a somewhat agitated but aimless way. Early students of crowd behaviour, struck by the resemblance to the milling of cattle before a stampede, gave this form of human activity its name. Its characteristic physical restlessness can be seen in an audience waiting for a late-starting program to begin or among citizens who have just received word of an assassination attempt. In the former case people scuffle their feet, leave their seats and walk about, and sometimes join spontaneously in rhythmic behaviour, such as foot stamping. In the latter case people discontinue routine activities and talk with neighbours, friends, and strangers. In most situations milling also means looking for clues to others' feelings, such as sweating, nervousness, and changes in tone of voice.
Human milling has at least four important effects. First, it sensitizes people to one another. In this sense milling focuses people's attention on the collectivity and on a subject or problem. Second, milling tends to produce a common mood among the interacting individuals. Where some might react with sorrow, others with anger, and still others with partisan delight or indifference, milling helps to diffuse a single mood within a group. Third, milling develops a common image or interpretation of the situation. The milling throng decides whether the Western tourist taking pictures of a marketplace in the native quarter of an Asian city is harmless or an affront to native dignity; whether the police in an American city are simply arresting a drunken driver or harassing an oppressed minority. Finally, milling sets in motion the process of redefining the rules that govern behaviour. The milling of an audience is usually the signal that customary rules of courtesy toward performers and speakers are no longer applicable and that different forms of behaviour may be expected.
Rumour
Rumour-creating situations
Rumour abounds under certain circumstances. The U.S. psychologists Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman offered the generalization that rumour intensity is high when both the interest in an event and its ambiguity are great. The U.S. sociologist Tamotsu Shibutani agreed, contending that rumour abounds when the demand for news is greater than is the supply provided through institutional channels.
At least two conditions must be added to interest and ambiguity as prerequisites for rumour. First, rumour abounds when a group of people share the need to act but are reluctant to do so until the situation can be better defined. Second, rumour abounds only when the situation requires that in some essential respect the members of the group act in concert rather than individually.
There are three major kinds of situations in which these four conditions are commonly met and rumour is rampant. First, in a social order in which information is, or is believed to be, strictly controlled by authorities, rumour is intense. When control over news is a continuing (rather than temporary) condition, rumour becomes regularized as an essential aspect of daily life. The so-called grapevines created by these conditions are regularly utilized by totalitarian regimes, military organizations, and subordinated ethnic groups, races, and social classes.
Second, rumour spreads when events threaten the understandings upon which normal life is based. A major disaster or scandal presents such a challenge. Any change in the regular accommodations between potentially conflicting or competing groups in society similarly calls into question routine patterns of conduct. The suggestion that management may enforce factory rules more strictly, for example, or the suggestion that a college faculty may stiffen or relax degree requirements, immediately provokes a siege of rumour.
Third, rumour springs up when a strong, shared incentive to act is blocked in some way, even by merely the lack of an occasion for action. During states of boredom, rumour capitalizes on minor events, magnifying them into occasions for exciting collective action.
The transmission of rumour
Rumour spreads most rapidly along preexisting social networks: among friends, associates, and peers rather than among persons of unequal standing. The messenger who first relates a rumour earns prestige by doing so. Moreover, any specific rumour tends to spread most rapidly when it first enters a group, and to reach persons faster who have responsibilities and interests connected with the event.
It is frequently assumed—incorrectly—that people transmit rumours only when they believe them and that discrediting a rumour will stop its spread. Other evidence suggests that people pass on rumours whether they believe them or not and that the likelihood of belief increases with their repeated hearing. This latter pattern is understandable if rumour is seen as a seeking, rather than a believing, process, in which every idea, no matter how invalid, provides a way of comprehending a strange or troublesome event. But since the group finds it urgent to reach a common understanding, pressure toward acceptance of a favoured version grows as the rumour process expands. Eventually, there is a sorting out of accounts and an insistence that everyone agree to a consensual account, which then serves as a basis for collective action.
Stages of rumour transmission
There is evidence that rumour follows a typical course. Evidence suggests that the rumour process eliminates the most improbable and unreliable accounts and achieves a high degree of veracity when (1) there is considerable recirculation of rumour and (2) there is a fairly well-organized grapevine. When rumour is recirculated the opportunity to compare versions with different groups of people acts as a brake on exaggeration and rubs off the idiosyncratic aspects of the story. With an established grapevine, the source of rumours can often be checked, and individuals who are known to have inside information are regularly consulted for verification.
In both early and late stages, rumour content changes with successive retelling in the direction of the understandable and familiar and in the direction of supporting the actions that the group is starting to take. The former is called assimilation by Allport and Postman and is illustrated by the tendency to make rumour details consistent with prejudice. The latter trend indicates that a group is inclined to support those beliefs that supply justification for some course of action toward which they are already predisposed.
Social unrest
The general condition of the community in which milling is both frequent and widespread and in which rumour is recurrent is the crucible in which the more highly organized forms of collective behaviour develop. This condition, known as social unrest, can lead to outbursts of violence. The American urban black uprisings of the 1960s were preceded and accompanied by social unrest in the form of a rise in tensions in black communities throughout the country; the Russian Revolution was preceded by several years of constant unrest and turmoil, involving random assassinations, strikes, and riots.
There are several distinguishing characteristics to social unrest. First, there is a general impairment of collective life routines. People find it difficult to concentrate on their work or even to adhere to rules in playing games. Any occasion to abandon routines is welcomed. Second, people are hyperreactive. The magnitude of the response is out of proportion to the usual meaning of any stimulating incident. A small police provocation elicits a major outcry of police brutality; a trivial success is the occasion for large-scale celebration. Milling and rumour abound because incidents that would normally pass with little notice become occasions for both. Third, social unrest is marked by contagiousness. When restlessness is strictly individual, one person's restlessness merely annoys another. But when restlessness becomes a shared experience, people are highly suggestible to one another. Questioning and exploring alternative courses of action are reduced to a minimum. Fourth, social unrest is not specific with respect to grievances or activities. When there is social unrest in a school, students complain of both restrictions on their behaviour and the lack of clearly defined rules; they find fault both with school administrators and with their fellow students. Finally, social unrest is perhaps the most volatile of collective states. Unlike rumour or milling, it does not remain focused on an issue or problem. Unlike crowd behaviour or fads, it has not yet been channeled into one main direction. Although social unrest may eventually die down without any serious aftermath, it is a condition in which people can be easily aroused.
Major forms of collective behaviour
Responses to disaster
A disaster-stricken community affords a prototypical situation for collective behaviour. The lives of persons are disrupted indiscriminately by a tornado, flood, or earthquake, and coping with the resulting destruction and disorder is beyond the capacity of conventional institutions. Of perhaps greatest importance, the assumption of a reasonably stable and predictable reality is undermined.
Common misconceptions
A number of common assumptions about behaviour under stress have been dispelled by research on responses to disaster. First, panic is rare. The quite specific conditions under which panic occurs is described below, but stoic, unbelieving, or even resigned reactions are more common than panic. Second, scapegoating is not the rule. Some investigations have suggested an almost unnatural avoidance of singling out villains and placing blame. Within the disaster community the establishment of solidarity is a concern that dampens scapegoating, at least until the immediate emergency is past. Third, there is much less looting and vandalism than is popularly supposed. Even among persons who converge from outside the community there is more petty pilfering for souvenirs than serious crime. Fourth, initially an altruistic selflessness is more prevalent than self-pity and self-serving activity. Frequently noted are dramatic instances of persons who have suffered injury or property damage themselves devoting their time to helping others in no greater need. Fifth, the disruption of established organizations and customary behaviour does not lead primarily to innovation and the exercise of freedom from old restraints. Instead, people more frequently cling to the familiar and seek reinstatement of the old.
The disaster cycle
Collective behaviour in disaster follows a characteristic cycle, from first warning to community rehabilitation.
Warning period
Although individuals read widely different meanings into disaster warnings, the striking feature of this initial stage is the slowness to believe and the reluctance to act upon warnings. People often remain in their houses in spite of imminent flooding and remain on familiar low ground in the face of tidal wave warnings. The surface calm that each person seeks to maintain in the presence of others can lead to collective self-deception and the inhibition of tendencies toward flight.
Impact and stocktaking period
In disasters such as floods and some hurricanes there is a distinctly long period of impact, which can be separated from a subsequent period of stocktaking or immobility. In earthquakes and explosions, on the other hand, the impact is so brief that the periods can hardly be separated. The combined period of impact and stocktaking is marked initially by a fragmentation of human relations, as each individual is separated from others and from his customary moorings; it is then marked by a resurgence of interpersonal warmth that transcends customary social barriers within the disaster community.
Rescue period
Just as initial fragmentation is followed by unnatural solidarity, stunned immobility gives way to a frenzy of activity in the rescue stage. Although activity is often inefficient, the task of rescuing persons who are trapped and of getting the injured to first-aid facilities is usually accomplished fairly expeditiously, often before outside help arrives. This is the period in which altruism becomes the norm, and old rivalries and conflicts are suspended. Many business concerns adopt an uneconomic generosity, and some individuals disregard their personal welfare. The imperious demand to “do something” at once creates an urgent demand for leadership. People turn first to established community leaders, and, when they are equal to the demands, such figures as police and fire officials, school principals, and mass-media personages are quickly accepted as leaders. Frequently these public figures are as bewildered and distracted as everyone else in the community and are soon abandoned in the restless search for leadership. The leaders then are found among persons who have the specific skills and tools required for the rescue efforts of the moment. Often these are people who do not normally exercise community leadership.
Rebuilding or “brickbat” period
The buoyed-up state of the disaster community can last only a short time. Tasks that call for intense effort within a brief time span are completed, and the slow and discouraging work of rebuilding confronts the community. Because the old community cleavages begin to reappear, and because tensions created and repressed during the rescue phase are now released, this period has been called the brickbat stage. The most notable characteristic of this period is the tendency to reinstitute the old community—to rebuild homes on old foundations, to reinstate old forms of organization. In spite of criticism against the ineptitude of established authorities, and in spite of evidence that building locations and methods are vulnerable to the elements, it requires strong leadership to guide the community toward innovation that makes use of what can be learned from the disaster experience.
Collective obsessions
The various kinds of collective obsession—fads, hysterias, and the like—have three main features in common. (1) The most conspicuous sign is a remarkable increase in the frequency and intensity with which people engage in a specific kind of behaviour or assert a belief. There was an “epidemic” of flying-saucer sightings; children in every residential neighbourhood in the United States played on skateboards; there was a sudden rush to buy Florida land. (2) The behaviour—or the abandon with which it is indulged—is ridiculous, irrational, or evil in the eyes of persons who are not themselves caught up in the obsession. In the case of recreational fads, such as skateboarding, nonfaddists are amazed at the tendency to drop all other activities in order to concentrate on the fad; the hundreds of incidents in which swastikas were daubed on synagogues during a few weeks in 1959 and 1960 in the United States, West Germany, and other countries shocked the sensibilities of a world that remembered the Nazi persecution of the Jews. (3) After it has reached a peak, the behaviour drops off abruptly and is followed by a counterobsession. To engage in the fad behaviour after the fad is over is to be subjected to ridicule; after the speculative land boom declines, there is a mad rush to sell property at whatever price it will bring. The following discussion covers five types of collective obsession: fads, hysterical contagion, deviant epidemic, fashion, and crazes.
Fads
It is tempting to explain fads on the basis of a single motive such as prestige. Prestige is gained by being among the first and most adept at a skill that everyone else covets. That the skill fails as a source of prestige when it is no longer scarce is an important explanation for the abrupt end of a fad. But motives are complex and varied. The exhilaration of joining a band of devotees in an intense preoccupation and the joy of mastering the novel are not to be discounted.
An examination of fads in such enterprises as scientific research and recreation sheds light on the fundamental dynamics of all kinds of fads. First, the scientific fad begins with a new idea or a rediscovered idea—though not just any new idea will set off a fad. The new idea must be a “key invention,” one that opens up the possibility for a wide range of minor innovations. Discovery of a potent new drug, for example, is followed by a rush to test the drug in all kinds of situations. Similarly, recreation and style faddists do not merely copy a pattern; they try out a variety of novel uses and variations on the basic pattern. The Hula-Hoop was an ideal fad because each child could develop his own particular variation in spinning the hoop.
Second, the termination of fads is largely explained by the exhaustion of innovative possibilities. The drug has been tested in all of the apparently relevant settings; children have run out of new ways to twirl the Hula-Hoop.
Third, the faddish preoccupation means holding in abeyance many routine activities as well as awareness of drawbacks to the fads. So long as the fad is in full force, a sharp ingroup-outgroup sense insulates faddists against these concerns. But once the faddists run out of new variations they begin to be aware of the extent of their neglect of other activities and to consider possible dangers in the fad.
Hysterical contagion
Occasionally waves of fear find expression in a rash of false perceptions and symptoms of physical illness. Girls in an English school fainted in great numbers; women in Mattoon, Ill., reported being anesthetized and assaulted by a mysterious prowler. The best documented case is that of a clothing factory that had to be closed down and fumigated because of reports of toxic insect bites—reports that could not subsequently be substantiated. The U.S. sociologist Alan C. Kerckhoff and the U.S. psychologist Kurt W. Back found that the crisis came after a period during which the women employees had performed unusual amounts of overtime work. The women who became ill from the mysterious insect bites had generally worked more overtime than others and had serious family responsibilities that they could not fulfill because of job demands. Afraid to refuse overtime work lest their job prospects be damaged, yet increasingly upset over neglect of family responsibilities, they found themselves in a conflict from which they could not extricate themselves. Illness from an insect bite provided an excuse to leave work for a day or two. The epidemic continued for about 11 days. It began immediately after a large shipment of foreign cloth had arrived, rendering plausible the assumption that some strange new insect had been introduced to the plant. The first women “bitten” were social isolates, lacking normal social defenses and controls. A rapid spread then took place among women who belonged to intimate cliques, in accord with the theory that social diffusion occurs most readily along well-established lines of social interaction. In the final stage the illness spread to others, irrespective of friendship ties or isolation.
Deviant epidemics
Obsessive behaviour also is observed within deviant groups in society. After Edward G. Robinson starred in the motion picture Little Caesar (1932), a rash of undersized juvenile delinquents aped his manner. In 1959 and 1960 there was a rash of incidents in which synagogues were desecrated, usually by painting Nazi swastikas on them, and anti-Semitic slogans were painted in public places. In the United States the epidemic began the day after Christmas and continued for nine weeks, encompassing 600 reported incidents. Incidents reached a peak in the third week, with the cycle in small communities lagging a little behind the large cities. In the early and late weeks Jewish synagogues, houses, and other specifically Jewish properties were the main targets. During the middle three weeks anti-Semitic symbols were often placed elsewhere, leading investigators to infer that during the peak of the epidemic many participants were drawn in who were less preoccupied with anti-Semitism than were those who initiated the incidents. Only a minority of the perpetrators were identified and arrested, but these were principally adolescent boys who worked together in small unorganized and heterogeneous groups. Some were strongly anti-Semitic in their attitudes, while others were no more hostile toward Jews than they were toward many other groups or aspects of society.
In this kind of episode socially disapproved feelings are given vent following an initial incident. Beginning with persons who have been holding back a specific feeling for some time, the epidemic builds up until persons with other types of suppressed feelings join in. As the epidemic recedes, these secondary participants drop out first.
Fashion
Fashion is much like fads and other collective obsessions, except that it is institutionalized and regularized, becoming continuous rather than sporadic, and partially predictable. Whereas fads often emerge from the lower echelons of society, and thus constitute a potential challenge to the class structure of society, fashion generally flows from the higher levels to the lower levels, providing a continuous verification of class differences. Continuous change is essential if the higher classes are to maintain their distinctiveness after copies of their clothing styles appear at lower levels. Fashions tend to change cyclically within limits set by the stabler culture.
Crazes
Another term frequently used to characterize collective obsessions is craze. The term is not analytically separate from “fad” and “fashion,” but it does carry somewhat different connotations. Frequently it refers to a collective focus on important figures in the entertainment or sports world—Rudolph Valentino, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Pelé to name a few. Fans idolize these personalities, relish and mimic real or imaginary details of their lives, and often form clubs or societies to share their fascination. In many instances crazes suffer the same fate as fads—they die abruptly. In some cases, however, figures such as Sinatra and the Beatles outlast the craze and endure as public figures.
The term craze also has a special connotation in the financial world. There crazes develop when the value of land, stock, or other merchandise is driven well above its intrinsic value by speculation, creating a boom. Such crazes are mainly modern phenomenon, since they require that there be surplus wealth and a flexible and storable medium of exchange. They represent the escalation of a buoyant confidence in the economic future that goes far beyond realistic limits. Financial crazes normally occur after a period of economic expansion and are associated with what seems to be the sudden emergence of a new area of opportunity. The postwar opening up of Spanish New World colonies to British trade was the occasion for the famous 18th-century South Sea Bubble. Combined with craze optimism is the fear of lost opportunity—that is, that the supply of land (or whatever) is not inexhaustible and that only those who buy early will benefit from the initial low prices. The famous crazes have generally received the stamp of authenticity from respected figures who themselves invested and endorsed the enterprise. No less a person than the king of England lost money when the South Sea Bubble burst. Speculative crazes in modern times evolve particularly out of stock exchange activities, although government controls have somewhat curtailed their volatility.
Crowds
A thin line separates crowd activities from collective obsessions. The crowd is, first, more concentrated in time and space. Thus a race riot, a lynching, or an orgy is limited to a few days or hours and occurs chiefly within an area ranging from a city square or a stadium to a section of a metropolitan area. Second, a concern of the majority of the crowd (many participants do not always share the concern) is a collaborative goal rather than parallel individual goals. The “june bug obsession” cited earlier, in which dozens of women went home from work because of imaginary insect bites, could have turned into a crowd action if the women had banded together to demand a change in working conditions or to conduct a ceremony to exorcise the evil. Third, because the goal is collaborative, there is more division of labour and cooperative activity in a crowd than in collective obsessions. Finally, a major concern of a crowd is with some improvement or social change expected as a result of its activity. Labour rioters expect management to be more compliant after the riot; participants in a massive religious revival expect life in the community to be somehow better as a result.
The crucial step in developing crowd behaviour is the formation of a common mood directed toward a recognized object of attention. In a typical riot situation a routine police arrest or a fistfight between individuals from opposing groups focuses attention. Milling and rumour then establish a mood of indignation and hostility toward an identified enemy or enemies. In a collective religious experience there is usually an amazing event that rivets attention. Through elementary collective behaviour the mood is defined as religious awe and gratitude toward the supernatural and its agents.
As the mood and object become established, either an “active” crowd or an “expressive” crowd is formed. The active crowd is usually aggressive, such as a violent mob, though occasionally it acts to propel members into heroic accomplishments. The expressive crowd has also been called the dancing crowd because its manifestations are dancing, singing, and other forms of emotional expression.
Active crowds
The active crowd identifies an object or group of objects outside itself and proceeds to act directly upon it or them. It will brook no delay or interference, no discussion of the desirability of acting, and no dissent from its course of action. Because of the high pitch of crowd interaction, subtle and indirect courses of action cannot win crowd support, though members are highly suggestible to all proposals and examples for action in keeping with the mood and the object. The stage of transformation from shared mood to shared action constitutes the beginning of the true crowd or mob.
The crucial feature of this stage is overcoming the barriers to such behaviour as the destruction of property or violence toward persons—actions against which most people have strongly ingrained inhibitions. At least four aspects of the way crowd members feel about the situation make this possible. First, there is a sense of an exceptional situation in which a special moral code applies. The crowd merely carries further the justification for a special code of ethics incorporated in the slogan “You have to fight fire with fire!” Second, there is a sense of power in the crowd, with its apparent determination and uniform will, that overcomes the individual's doubts concerning his own ability to carry out a momentous task successfully. Third, there is a sense of impunity, of safety from personal injury and punishment so long as the individual is on the side of the crowd. And finally, there is a sense of inevitability—that the crowd aim will be accomplished regardless of the doubts and opposition of individuals.
Once the crowd breaks through the barrier of conventional restraints there is typically a “Roman holiday” period during which all restraint appears to be dropped. To the outsider, people seem to have gone mad. Rage is entirely uninhibited. But at the same time an atmosphere of intense enjoyment and release is evident. There is laughing and cheering as the violence and destruction become part of a tremendous carnival.
Under cover of the Roman holiday, people pursue many different interests. Looting for personal gain is infrequent in the early stages of rioting. The leading agents in bringing the mob into being are too preoccupied with their indignation for this. But once the general attack is under way, looting for gain, vandalism for fun, and attacks on specific objects to pay off old grudges become prevalent. In Russian and Polish pogroms of the 19th and early 20th centuries, peasants came with their carts to loot Jewish property after they heard that the pogrom was under way. Lynchings in the southern United States in the early part of the 20th century were frequently followed by general forays on black neighbourhoods.
The active crowd normally ends with a tapering-off period, which is sometimes preceded by a stage of siege. In riots of limited scale in which no massive police or military forces are used, the peak day is followed by a few more days of successively smaller numbers of widely scattered encounters. Often the last incidents are in areas not previously hit by rioting. There seems to be some internal mechanism limiting the duration of crowd behaviour, though whether it is fatigue, catharsis, or reassertion of ingrained standards of behaviour is uncertain. In serious riots, however, the police and other armed forces are brought into action long before the riot declines on its own. When police power is applied with only enough force to ensure a standoff between rioters and authorities, there is a period—usually ranging from one to three or four days—of siege. The mood of buoyancy gives way to a mood of dogged persistence. Rioters are more cautious and deliberate in what they do. The desire to have the riot over grows among the participants and in the community, but there is reluctance to give up the fight until concessions have been won.
A crowd develops only when a necessary sequence of events occurs and when conditions conducive to crowd development are present. There are at least six such conditions of importance. The first is a deep frustration that is shared by an important segment of the population and that has been festering for a considerable period of time. The frustration is especially poignant when widening intergroup contacts make the frustrated segment more vitally aware of its disadvantages, when its members have been encouraged by education or a public policy statement to aspire to relatively unattainable objectives, and when a period of steadily improving conditions is suddenly interrupted. Second is the presence of deep intergroup cleavages in society. A crowd must have not only a grievance but also an oppressor whom it can blame for its condition. Third is some contradiction in the value system of society, so that there is support both for the social arrangements that the group finds frustrating and for its demands for change. Fourth is a failure of communication, so that grievances can no longer be presented to the appropriate authorities with confidence that they will be given some consideration. Fifth is some failure in the system of control. Mobs often catch police unprepared. In many instances the police, by virtue of their class or ethnic identity, are in sympathy with mobs and unwilling to enforce order. Sixth are experiences leading people to hope that conditions will be improved as a result of violent or disruptive action. Many riots have the support of a well-developed ideology, or they follow occasions when demonstrations and other less extreme tactics have won gains. Among the reasons that mob actions do not soon recur in a given location are that the forces of order are usually strengthened, the hope of great gain is dampened, and channels of communication are often improved after a mob action.
Expressive crowds
Not all crowds act. In some crowds the participants are largely preoccupied with themselves or with one another, and with participation in a common experience. Beginning as early as the 7th century in Europe, and continuing throughout the Middle Ages, there were reported epidemics in which groups of people were caught up in a frenzy of dancing that continued until they dropped. Later a collective frenzy of dancing, singing, and shouting became a regular feature of frontier revivals in 19th-century America. Crowds that exceeded conventional limits of revelry have been common in many historical eras. In San Francisco in 1945, license for public violation of sexual mores characterized the day of celebration at the end of the war with Japan.
Expressive crowds may be secular or religious. What distinguishes them is that the production of a shared subjective experience is the crowd's measure of its accomplishment, rather than any action upon objects outside the crowd. One interpretation is that the same determinants of social unrest and frustration may give rise to both the expressive crowd and the active crowd, but the expressive crowd fails to identify an object toward which to act; hence members must release accumulated tension through motions and gestures expressing emotion. According to this view an expressive crowd can fairly quickly metamorphose into an active crowd if an object becomes apparent to them. Another interpretation sees the expressive crowd as equally equipped with an object, but with an object that must be acted upon symbolically rather than directly. Thus, one crowd engages in a wild dance to exorcise evil spirits, whereas another seeks to destroy buildings associated with the “establishment” that it blames for many ills.
The expressive crowd may serve best those types of frustrations requiring revitalization of the individual and group rather than direct modification of external circumstances. Expressive crowds may be especially frequent in periods of frustration and boredom over the predictability and routinization of life, from lack of a sense of meaning and importance in the daily round of life, and from a sense of interpersonal isolation in spite of the physical closeness of others.
Panic
The word panic is often applied to a strictly individual, maladaptive reaction of flight, immobility, or disorganization stemming from intense fear. For example, a student “panics” during an examination and is unable to call upon his knowledge in answering questions, or a disaster victim in a situation of mild danger panics and flees into much greater danger. Individual panic frequently occurs as a unique individual response without triggering a similar reaction in others.
Panic as collective behaviour, however, is shared behaviour. When an entire military unit breaks into disorderly flight, a group pattern of orderly behaviour is replaced by a group pattern of panic.
There are a number of distinguishing features to collective panic, four of which are noted here. First, several persons in social contact with one another simultaneously exhibit intense fear and either flee (or demonstrate disorganization leading toward flight) or remain immobile. Second, each individual's fear and his evaluation of the danger are augmented by the signals he receives from others. Third, flight is indicated as the only conceivable course of action by the signals each is receiving from others. Fourth, the usual rules according to which individuals adjust their behaviour so as not to work at cross-purposes are nullified. In the more dramatic instances of collective panic, people trample one another in vain efforts to reach safety.
Four types of causes for collective panic are generally recognized. First, collective panic usually occurs in the kind of situation that arouses fear in any individual. Hence the psychological causes for individual panic are also the fundamental causes for collective panic.
A second cause of panic is the special character of the situation in which people find themselves. Students of responses to disaster observe that collective panic occurs only when people perceive a danger that is both immediate and severe, when they know of only a very limited number of escape routes from the danger, and when they believe those routes are being closed off so that the time for escape is extremely limited. The requirement that all three conditions be present underlines the observation that intense fear in situations from which there is apparently no escape elicits no collective panic and little individual panic.
Psychologists have suggested that collective panic be viewed as part of a broad class of individualistic crowds. Individualistic crowds include such phenomena as the crush and breakdown of order that sometimes occur at a bargain sale, or the transformation of an orderly ticket-window queue into a shoving and pushing crowd. All the usual mechanisms of crowd behaviour are in operation, but, in contrast to the lynch mob or race riot, the situation encourages the intensified pursuit of individual rather than collective goals.
The situational explanation is not complete by itself, however, as indicated by such occasions as the sinking of the ocean liner Titanic with great loss of life but without panic. The ship was visibly sinking, and it was known that there were too few lifeboats for all the passengers, and yet men were frequently reluctant to board the lifeboats until all women and children on board had first been rescued. Hence the third set of causes is the interstimulation of elementary crowd behaviour, the milling, rumour, and social unrest, through which the group forms a collective view of the situation and of the appropriate behaviour. It is difficult to find any logical explanation for the difference in behaviour between the passengers on the Titanic and passengers who have panicked in other maritime disasters, except that a norm of gentility and heroism came to dominate the collective definition through these elementary processes.
Since the most dramatic feature of panic behaviour is every individual's disregard for his fellows' lives, many students believe that the fourth set of causes lies in the quality of every individual's relations with his fellows. The U.S. sociologists Kurt Lang and Gladys E. Lang view panic as the end point in a process of demoralization in which behaviour becomes privatized and there is a general retreat from the pursuit of group goals.
Publics and masses
Crowd behaviour and such related forms as fads and panics are often contrasted with “publics,” in which more of an attitude of deliberation prevails. The most important distinction between crowds and publics is that people in the public recognize that there is a division of opinion about an issue and are prepared to interact with a recognition and tolerance of difference. Blumer defines the public as “a group of people who (a) are confronted by an issue, (b) are divided in their ideas as to how to meet the issue, and (c) engage in discussion over the issue.” Another important difference is that the product of interaction in the public is public opinion, rather than the collective action or experience of collective ecstasy that eventuates from active and expressive crowds.
Publics are common in societies where public officials and institutional leaders are thought to be responsive to indications of public opinion. When this condition does not prevail, collective behaviour does not usually crystallize beyond the elementary forms, stopping with the establishment of a rumour grapevine. When disillusionment over official response to public opinion reaches a high pitch, publics either do not form or turn quickly into crowds that take direct action.
The public and crowd should be distinguished from the “mass.” Members of a mass exhibit similar behaviour, simultaneously, but with a minimum of interaction. Masses include a wide range of groups. They include, for instance, people simultaneously reading the newspaper advertisement for a department store sale and simultaneously converging on the store with similar objects in mind; but masses also involve people converging in a disaster or a gold rush or a mass migration. In the public and the crowd, social interaction plays a large part in accounting for common definitions of an issue and similar views about how to deal with a problem. But in a mass a great many people react similarly to a common stimulus just because they have common attitudes and motivations. Election behaviour is often closer to the mass than to the public, when taboos on discussing controversial topics lead each person to make up his mind privately on the basis of what he gleans from the mass media of communication.
Theories of collective behaviour
Because much collective behaviour is dramatic, unpredictable, and frightening, the early theories and many contemporary popular views are more evaluative than analytic. The French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon identified the crowd and revolutionary movements with the excesses of the French Revolution; the U.S. psychologist Boris Sidis was impressed with the resemblance of crowd behaviour to mental disorder. Many of these early theories depicted collective behaviour as an atavism, in which the evolutionary accomplishments of civilization were stripped away and human behaviour returned to an earlier stage of development. Freud retained this emphasis in viewing crowd behaviour and many other forms of collective behaviour as regressions to an earlier stage of childhood development; he explained, for example, the slavish identification that followers have for leaders on the basis of such regression.
More sophisticated recent efforts to treat collective behaviour as a pathological manifestation employ social disorganization as an explanatory approach. From this point of view collective behaviour erupts as an unpleasant symptom of frustration and malaise stemming from cultural conflict, organizational failure, and other social malfunctions. The distinctive feature of this approach is a reluctance to take seriously the manifest content of collective behaviour. Neither the search for enjoyment in a recreational fad, the search for spiritual meaning in a religious sect, nor the demand for equal opportunity in an interest-group movement is accepted at face value.
An opposite evaluation of many forms of collective behaviour has become part of the analytic perspective in revolutionary approaches to society. From the revolutionist's point of view, much collective behaviour is a release of creative impulses from the repressive effects of established social orders. Revolutionary theorists such as Frantz Fanon depict traditional social arrangements as destructive of human spontaneity, and various forms of crowd and revolutionary movements as man's creative self-assertion bursting its social shackles.
Individual motivation theories
Among the analytic theories that seek to eschew evaluation, the most popular ones stress individual motivation in accounting for collective behaviour. Frustration and lack of firm social anchorage are the two most widely used explanations for individual participation in collective behaviour of all kinds. In the psychiatric tradition, frustration heightens suggestibility, generates fantasy, brings about regressions and fixations, and intensifies drives toward wish fulfillment so that normal inhibitions are overcome. Since most forms of collective behaviour promote thoughts that are otherwise difficult to account for and that breech behavioral inhibitions, this is often a fruitful source of explanation.
In the sociological tradition of Émile Durkheim, absence of firm integration into social groups leaves the individual open to deviant ideas and susceptible to the vital sense of solidarity that comes from participation in spontaneous groupings. Drawing upon both the psychiatric and the sociological traditions, Erich Fromm attributed the appeal of mass movements and crowds to the gratifying escape they offer from the sense of personal isolation and powerlessness that people experience in the vast bureaucracies of modern life. Extending Karl Marx's theory of modern man's alienation from his work, many contemporary students attribute faddism, crowds, movements of the spirit, and interest-group and revolutionary movements to a wide-ranging alienation from family, community, and country, as well as from work.
According to the approach suggested by the U.S. political scientist Hadley Cantril, participation in vital collectivities supplies a sense of meaning through group affirmation and action and raises the member's estimate of his social status, both of which are important needs often frustrated in modern society. Eric Hoffer, a U.S. philosopher, attributed a leading role in collective behaviour to “true believers,” who overcome their own personal doubts and conflicts by the creation of intolerant and unanimous groups about them.
Interaction theories
Sociologists and social psychologists, without denying the place of individual motivation in any complete explanation for collective behaviour, have more often stressed a distinctive quality or intensity of social interaction. The U.S. sociologist Ernest Burgess, along with Park, associates collective behaviour with “circular reaction,” a type of interaction in which each person reacts by repeating the action or mirroring the sentiment of another person, thereby intensifying the action or sentiment in the originator. Blumer adds a subtlety to this theory by sharply distinguishing circular reaction from “interpretative interaction,” in which the individual first interprets another's action and then makes a response usually different from the stimulus action. Another stream of thought has stressed difference of intensity rather than kind of interaction. Following the lead of the French social scientist Gabriel Tarde and the French psychologist Alfred Binet, many investigators have looked for clues that normal imitative tendencies and suggestibility may be intensified in collective behaviour. An important approach is based on the U.S. psychologist Floyd H. Allport's criticism of Le Bon and William McDougall, a British-born U.S. psychologist, for their concept of “group mind,” and for their apparent assumption that collective behaviour makes people do things to which they are not predisposed. Allport insisted instead that collective behaviour involves merely a group of people doing what they previously wanted to do but for which they lacked the occasion and the support of like-minded associates.
These interaction theories have been labeled contagion and convergence theories, respectively—the former stressing the contagious spread of mood and behaviour; the latter stressing the convergence of a large number of people with similar predispositions. Both have sought to explain why a group of people feel and act (1) unanimously, (2) intensely, and (3) differently from the manner in which they customarily act. Other interaction theorists have challenged the assumption of unanimity, proposing that in most kinds of collective behaviour a single mood and course of action is established with such force and intolerance that the many who privately dissent are silenced, creating an illusion of unanimity. Rather than contagion, it is an emergent norm or rule that governs external appearances and, to a lesser extent, internal convictions in collective behaviour.
Freud, too, stressed a distinctive pattern of interaction in collective behaviour. The key to these groupings is the desire to possess a beloved leader. Because the leader is unattainable, and because his attentions must be shared among many followers, a relation of identification is expressed in the demand for uniformity that the followers insistently impose on each other, according to the example of the leader.
Social change
A final set of theories stresses characteristics of social organization that generate collective behaviour. Collective behaviour is commonly seen by sociologists as a normal accompaniment and medium for social change, relatively absent in periods of social stability. With the more or less continuous shifts of values in any society, emerging values are first given group expression in collective behaviour; efforts to revitalize declining values also bring forth collective behaviour. Again, the constant readjustments in the power of different population segments are implemented and resisted through collective behaviour. Because it is a means of communication, and because it is always characterized by novel or intensified control over individuals, collective behaviour also arises to bypass blockages in communication and to install an emergent order when formal or informal regulation of behaviour is inadequate.
The most comprehensive theory specifying necessary conditions for the development of most major forms of collective behaviour was advanced by Smelser. He noted six conditions that must be present: (1) the social structure must be peculiarly conducive to the collective behaviour in question; (2) a group of people must experience strain; (3) a distinctive type of belief must be present to interpret the situation; (4) there must be a precipitating event; (5) the group of people must be mobilized for action on the basis of the belief; and (6) there must be an appropriate interaction between the mobilized group and agencies of social control. The detail for each condition varies with the type of collective behaviour.
The results of collective behaviour
The variety of effects
Short-term effects
The most notable immediate effect of all kinds of collective behaviour is to alter the salience of various problems, issues, and groups in public awareness. Popular concern about disarmament grew large as “Ban-the-Bomb” demonstrations proliferated during the late 1950s and early 1960s; then public interest waned as demonstrations became infrequent or ceased. A fad calls attention to recreational needs; the circumstances surrounding a panic monopolize public attention. Second, all forms of collective behaviour contribute to polarizations, forcing people to take sides on issues and eliminating the middle ground. Often a three-sided conflict develops among the two polarized groups and mediators who wish to de-emphasize divisive issues altogether. Third, every instance of collective behaviour either alters or strengthens the makeup of group and community leadership. The swings of fashion discredit some clothes designers and boost others to prominence. A riot or a wildcat strike usually reveals the inability of established leaders to control their members and produces emergent leaders from among the spokesmen acceptable to members.
Contingencies
How the immediate effects of collective behaviour are translated into long-term consequences depends upon several contingencies, of which four merit attention. First, the nature of the response by authorities affects the immediate course of the collective behaviour. Some evidence suggests that alarmed and repressive reactions strengthen polarization, that moderate reactions strengthen the mediation viewpoint, and that inaction or ineffectual action facilitates efforts toward usurpation of authority.
Second, the response of authorities affects public definitions of the meaning of the collective behaviour. Publics have variously defined particular fads as harmless diversions, threats to authority and order, threats to health and well-being, visitations of the Holy Spirit, and possession by the devil, treating them quite differently in consequence. Lynchings are vigilante actions, or they are criminal subversions of justice. Riots can be viewed as mass criminality or as social protest. Social movements are defined as respectable, or as peculiar but harmless, or as dangerous and revolutionary, evoking polite support, embarrassed avoidance, or active repression, respectively.
A third contingency affecting the aftermath of collective behaviour concerns the nature and strategy of the counter-movements or counterfads that arise. When the counter-movement arises, acquires a bitter and reactionary tone, and becomes a backlash, polarization and heightened disorder often lead to demands for order at any cost, at the expense of any amelioration that might otherwise have occurred. But backlash is often self-discrediting as “extremism,” and over the long run it sometimes pushes many people onto the side of amelioration. Countermovements that avoid the backlash pattern typically try to undermine the group they oppose by taking some of the latter's aims as their own, thereby helping to effect reforms sought in the initial protest.
Finally, the effect of collective behaviour depends upon the ubiquitous process of conventionalization. In a spontaneous fad or mob action, participants usually copy the pattern of earlier incidents with which they are familiar, so that separate incidents in a wave of collective behaviour exhibit a similarity indicating the development of customary ways of rioting, or playing at a fad, and possibly even of panicking. When incidents are repeated, a gradual accommodation between participants in collective behaviour and the authorities becomes routinized. Once the behaviour is conventionalized in this fashion, there are increasing efforts to create and use the conventionalized form of collective behaviour for private and public aims. Much advertising seeks to create fads in conventionalized ways. Political rallies, sports rallies, and some of the ceremonies of established religious organizations seek to conventionalize the enthusiasm and sense of solidarity of expressive crowds. Social movements rapidly acquire stable organizations, sects become denominations, political movements become political parties or are absorbed into parties, and humanitarian movements become stabilized as associations to promote some form of human betterment. Conventionalization extends the influence of orienting ideas, but it also ensures compromise and abandonment of the most disruptive and controversial features of the initial behaviour.
Long-term effects
In the long run it is difficult to be sure whether a particular type of collective behaviour actually makes a difference or whether it is merely a shadow cast by passing events. Scattered collective behaviour is endemic in every society. But when there is widespread discontent, collective behaviour soon becomes a prominent feature of group life. When there are no exciting new ideas—such as the liberal humanitarian vision of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Socialist idea of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the nationalist mystique of the 20th century—collective behaviour consists principally of expressive behaviour, panics, and unfocused disruption or intergroup vengeance such as pogroms. This kind of collective behaviour probably contributes little to change. But when there is a new perspective to give meaning to discontent, many forms of collective behaviour appear to become agents of change. Even a recreational fad becomes a form of self-assertion for a rising class or age group. Le Bon suggested that in a period of widespread discontent crowd action serves to destroy an old order in preparation for a new one. Social movements help to build the new order.
One view holds that collective behaviour supplies a testing ground on which new ideas are tried out for general acceptability and on which groups test their strength against forces of resistance. The outcome of this testing is sometimes change and sometimes public demonstration that the old order is still viable. This view suggests that collective behaviour has as great a function to play in maintaining social stability as in implementing social change.
Attempts at control
Attempts to control collective behaviour vary according to whether change or stability is sought. Advocates of change seek to control countermovements and backlash crowds, as well as those expressive crowds and fads that anesthetize people to their grievances, whereas advocates of stability seek to control crowds and movements that undermine public order or threaten revolution. Advocates of both change and stability likewise make use of collective behaviour in achieving their aims. The volatile and unpredictable nature of all collective behaviour renders manipulation and control highly problematic, however, and masters of control, such as the French revolutionary Robespierre, have often been victims of the followers they once manipulated.
The most sensitive and difficult control problem occurs at the moment of the first precipitating incident and during the stage of transformation in an active crowd. A show of weakness—or maybe even unnecessary repression—will escalate the crowd into the Roman-holiday stage. It is essential to identify spokesmen who command a hearing with the crowd—often not the established group leaders—and open serious negotiations with them. Poorly arranged negotiating sessions before television cameras are easily turned into occasions for incitement of the crowd. If the provocations of excessive policing are avoided and one or two dramatic concessions of great symbolic importance made, a cooling-off period may be secured in which more comprehensive measures to relieve tensions in the situation can be undertaken.
Once collective behaviour is fully escalated there is seldom any control technique available except massive suppression, and some experts believe that crowd behaviour will spring up again if crushed before it has substantially run its course. Interference with an expressive crowd, and even with many fads and instances of hysterical contagion, often turns it into a hostile, active one. As the intensity of feeling begins to decline, the time is then ripe to quicken the end of crowd behaviour by intensifying negotiations with spokesmen respected by the crowd.
Lewis M. Killian
Ralph H. Turner
Neil J. Smelser
Additional Reading
Theoretical and general studies
Theories of collective behaviour are introduced in Hadley Cantril, The Psychology of Social Movements (1941, reprinted 1973); Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1922, reissued 1975; originally published in German, 1921); William A. Gamson, Power and Discontent (1968); Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951, reissued 1980); Richard T. Lapiere, Collective Behavior (1938); and David L. Miller, Introduction to Collective Behavior (1985). See also John C. Brigham, Social Psychology (1986). The major general treatments of the subject include Herbert Blumer, “Collective Behavior,” in Alfred M. Lee (ed.), Principles of Sociology, 3rd ed. (1969), a classic sociological statement of a widely used approach; Roger Brown, “Mass Phenomena,” in Gardner Lindzey (ed.), Handbook of Social Psychology, vol. 2, pp. 833–876 (1954); and Stanley Milgram and Hans Toch, “Collective Behavior: Crowds and Social Movements,” in Gardner Lindzey and Elliot Aronson (eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology, 2nd ed., vol. 4, pp. 507–610 (1968), comprehensive reviews presented by psychologists; Robert R. Evans (ed.), Readings in Collective Behavior, 2nd ed. (1975), a collection of classic journal articles; Kurt Lang and Gladys Engel Lang, Collective Dynamics (1961), a standard textbook; Neil J. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior (1963, reissued 1971), a classic theoretical treatise and text; Ralph H. Turner, “Collective Behavior,” in Robert E.L. Faris (ed.), Handbook of Modern Sociology, pp. 382–425 (1964), an analytic statement of the field for the advanced student in sociology; Ralph H. Turner and Lewis M. Killian, Collective Behavior, 3rd ed. (1987), a standard textbook; and John Lofland, Protest: Studies of Collective Behavior and Social Movements (1985).
Specialized studies
Elementary collective behaviour is studied in Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman, The Psychology of Rumor (1947, reprinted 1975); Tamotsu Shibutani, Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor (1966); and Fredrick Koenig, Rumor in the Marketplace: The Social Psychology of Commercial Hearsay (1985). Responses to disaster are the subject of George W. Baker and Dwight W. Chapman (eds.), Man and Society in Disaster (1962 - Re: 法国哲人勒邦posted on 02/09/2007
thanks devil, that's why赖希之辈.
devil wrote:
这两位及其著作都是古董了,是神吹时代的产物。怎么国人又挖出来当科学前沿?好在盲众行为比较复杂,难以实验研究。大家只能拍脑袋讲常识了。
勒邦是第一人,讲出来的东西还较符合常识。赖希之辈就更离奇了。下面提供点资料补补课。
- posted on 02/10/2007
谢谢自立兄的认同。我有时间会比较详细地论述。虽然我太感性了,论述起来未必严谨。:)
"老吾老以及人之老,幼吾幼以及人之幼"。仁,义,忠,孝,道等,都是关于“整体”的理念以及对于人的教化。中国的古文化,与印度的古佛教文化一样是非常伟大的,就是这“礼教文化”。
勒邦谈到人的原始性,也就是所谓动物本性吧。动物中,再凶猛的动物,猎杀其他动物主要是为了填饱肚皮。对吧?而人在已经吃饱的状态下了,为什么还要去杀其他人呢?两次世界大战中有千百万无辜百姓死于敌对国的狂轰乱炸。所以,并不是“动物本性”造成了这样的暴虐。
个人主义,让我想起全球这些年来兴起的“NEW AGE”文化运动。也就是寻求个人的“心灵自由”。
但是,人都是有思想的,虽然能“独立思想”的比较少。所以,思想和理念驱使了人。僵化的错误的理念也造成了很多人的“心理折磨”,以至于使得生命之树慢慢枯萎。虽然,表面上是“善”的“乖”的“顺”的,其实还不如回到其动物本性呢,:)。
人也都是有自我的。这自我也是双刃剑。一方面,我们活着,就是为了创造出一个与现实世界不同的,几乎完美的世界。另一方面,这自我也可能使得人封闭,而变成不死不活的怪物。
要过年了,挺忙的。年后有时间再聊。这是需要很多细微而认真的分析。弗洛伊德是研究病案的。马斯洛的人本主义学说又比较乌托邦。现在人类的很多问题,从五十年前就发生了。如果继续下去,不但不可能有真正意义的“革命”,而且也不能避免战争的继续爆发。
我们没有办法阻止,但是既然活着,就要燃烧生命之火,去尽力而为。就象古代圣贤所言:无为而为之。
理性非理性,整体个体。。。。。。都是一种双刃剑。梦冉所言又是很对——至少我个人以为很对。
很好的观点,如果可以展开更好。
但是,在观察这个问题的时候,也许会有阶段性的主要倾向可以>选择。比如说,在儒学科层制度中,就缺少个人主义这种倾向和>特征,这正是谈论中国文化的时候,常常提到的症结所在——约>翰。穆勒(密尔)就是这个看法,他的 论自由 里就是这样看法。
个人主义是不是要结伴群社论,这个课题谈得很多。
所以,我以为中国人现在不宜过度谈论集体主义和儒家学说,主>要要探讨个性自由问题。这个个性自由,不是自由泛滥论,而是>要规范自由主义行为的可能性和约束力。
比如,你要说话,这时候,你要自我训练成为一个作家,并且享>受你自己可以开店出版书籍,那种自由。
又比如,我感兴趣办报纸,苦于这个梦想的不可能性,但是,如>果体制变化,我们一茬人,也许真的可以办报。等等。
这就比在玛雅这里乱讲话,要更加正式,严肃,有效。
现在是没办法的,只能在此乱讲一通,叫做 昆达理尼/ >Kundalini 的释放吧(见『傅科摆』)。
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