Psychology of Crowds: lessons from Gustave le Bon

Psychology of Crowds: lessons from Gustave le Bon

This time, I wanted to talk about a subject quite different from pure marketing: psychology, and especially the psychology of the crowds. I read the “Psychology of Crowds” from the French psychologist Gustave le Bon (1841 – 1931). This book contains several insights and concepts that could be useful for any marketers eager to understand how people can modify their behavior in presence of a crowd.

 
First of all, the author proposes to distinguish traditional meaning of crowds with its psychological meaning.
  • Traditional meaning: traditionally, Mr. le Bon defines a crowd as a meeting of any individuals no matter their nationalities, jobs, gender, or the random event that brings them together.
  • Psychological meaning: in special circumstances, a mass of people has strong new characteristics that differs significantly from that of the individuals that compose it. The conscious personality disappears, the feelings and ideas of all the units converge toward one direction. A collective soul is created, it forms a single being and is subject to the mental unity of the crowd. One thousand individuals accidentally gathered in a public place does not constitute a crowd in a psychological point of view.
Sir Le Bon provides an analyze of the common point to all crowds.
  • No matter the individuals composing a crowd, by the simple fact that they are transformed into a crowd, they possess a kind of collective spirit that makes them feel, think and act in a totally different way that they would do individually. A psychological crowd is a temporary being.
  • The heterogeneity is drowned into the homogeneity. In the collective soul, the aptitudes of the intellectual individuals, thus their individuality, is erased.

Then, we get a list of the causes of the emergence of special behaviors. Among them:

  • The individual, in a crowd, acquires, by the simple presence of the number, a feeling of invincible power that makes him adopt instincts that, alone, he/she would have refrained. The anonymity of the crowd makes the feeling of responsibility disappear.
  • Contagion: In a crowd, every feeling, every act is so contagious that the individual sacrifices his/her personal interest for the collective interest.
  • Suggestibility: the individual is in a fascinating state and finds himself hypnotized in the hand of his hypnotist. He is not conscious of his actions.

According to Sir Le Bon, the crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual. However, from the point of view of the generated actions and feelings, the crowd, depending on the circumstances, can be better or worse than the individual.

The elements determining the opinions of the crowds are from 2 categories:

  • The distant factors that make crowds able to adopt some convictions and unable to be penetrated by others. They prepare the ground where we can see new ideas emerging with amazing power and results. However, their spontaneity is not totally real. Indeed, the culture, tradition, time, political and social institutions and education shape these “new ideas”.
  • The immediate factors which follow this long work without which they won’t have any effect generating active persuasion in the crowds.

Take for example the French Revolution. The distant factors were the written works of philosophers, the atrocities of the nobility, progress of the scientific thoughts. On the other hand, the immediate factors were the speeches of speakers and the resistance of the nobility against insignificant political reforms.

Finally, the book offers a list of different types of crowds.

  • Heterogeneous crowds: they can be anonymous (street crowds), non-anonymous (jurors), they are composed of random individuals no matter they job or intellectual level.
  • Homogeneous crowds: it includes castes (military castes, working castes), classes (noble classes, working classes), sects (political sects, religious sects)
    • Sects: is the 1st degree in the organization of homogeneous crowds. It includes, sometimes, individuals from different educational and professional backgrounds, having only the beliefs as a common a link.
    • Castes: represent the highest degree of organization that a crowd can be. Although sects include individuals of different backgrounds, linked only by the community of beliefs, the cast includes individuals of a same profession and therefore with similar educational background.
    • Class: formed by individuals from diverse origins united not by a belief nor professional occupations, but by certain interests, habits and similar education.
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Even if this book was written more than a century ago, it contains information and concepts that are still true today. Even if the development of internet and communication channels, the form and definition of crowds have changed, but their behavior, even online, has not moved, sometimes it is more intense than physical crowds. Therefore, we all have a role to play in a crowd. We must not forget our singularity and keep a critical spirit toward the actions of others and our own.

Reference:

Le Bon, Gustave; “Psychologie des Foules“, Ultraletters; Print, 2016.