Psychology of the crowd: what is it, how to manage, how is the role of a leader, examples.

The psychology of the crowd contains its phenomenon. If you delve into its effect, it will simply understand what it is and why the mass riots are sometimes created.

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Each person at least once in his life fell into a crowd organized a group of people. At the same time, we do not even understand that we are under the influence of competent psychologists and their actions. After all, the crowd needs to be able to manage.

Read on our website another interesting article on the topic: "Why is it bad to answer the question of the question: by etiquette, psychology".

From this article you will learn what the crowd is, its psychology and behavior. You will also read a lot of other interesting information. It will make it clear how to influence a person and why manipulation of people occurs. Read further.

What is a crowd, group and mass riots from the point of view of social psychology: Briefly

Crowd - This is the accumulation of people who are in emotional excitement and have direct contact with each other. The main distinguishing feature of the crowd is its spontaneous education, as well as the lack of conscious common goals in people.

When interpreting a concept "group", psychology is primarily based on interdisciplinaryness, that is, on the sociological, as well as the psychological paradigm. Understanding of group psychology, social psychology occurs through analysis, which considers the audited social groups, determining the details that turn them into a psychological community. In turn, it allows any, to an individual person to identify with a certain group.

From the point of view of social psychology, the basis for mass riots Different reasons may become. For example:

Policy
National discord
Provocations
Protests

Usually, mass riots They arise spontaneously, due to unexpected circumstances. Their main psychological feature lies in a large number of people taking part in them. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the psychology of a person who has fallen into the crowd is sharply distorted, especially at the time of an extreme situation, when the mind is exposed to strong factors. This state of a person is called "Psychology of the crowd", and due to blind follow by the general mass. This is the main driving force of all mass riots.

Psychology and features of the behavior of the crowd, a person in the crowd

Psychology distinguishes several features of behavior inherent in the entire structure of the crowd or an individual person who is in it and manifested in several areas:

Temperamental
Cognitive
Moral
Emotionally volitional

The crowd shows various oddities of behavior in the cognitive sphere:

Unconsciousness

One of the main psychological features of the crowd is its complete unconsciousness. An isolated individual is poorly listened to the voice of the mind, which is why a large proportion of actions is committed in an emotional impulse, and the crowd completely denies logic and exists only with feelings. At the time of the formation of the crowd, especially in extreme situations, the so -called "herd instinct" begins to appear. A homogeneous prevails over the heterogeneous in a person - a particle of the crowd, and each individual lends itself to unconscious feelings. A person isolated from the crowd is able to suppress unconscious reflexes inside himself, while the crowd is devoid of such a skill.

Imagination

The crowd is distinguished by a well -developed imagination and susceptibility to impressions. Cleaning and obvious images for an isolated person are able to impress the imagination of the crowd. These images, generated by someone in the mind of crowds, practically do not differ in their liveliness from the real ones. At the same time, the imagination of people in the crowd is not striking in facts, as such, but how they are presented.

Another effect of the crowd is mass hallucinations. The mind of the gathered crowd has the ability to distort events:

A feature of mental processes. The crowd thinks with the help of images. In turn, the image arising in the human head begins to generate associations that are not connected logically with it. The crowd does not know how to distinguish between objective and subjective things. She doesn't think. The crowd is entirely converts alien ideas, contradictions and disputes for it are unacceptable.
Extremism. The energy of the crowd can be directed exclusively for destruction. Inside each individual person, the craving for destruction is asleep. It is dangerous to succumb to destructive impulses, but being in the crowd and feeling impunity, a person can easily succumb to instincts.

Another curious feature of the crowd is especially psychological, as well as social phenomena that make the behavior of its participants uniform. The crowd is created on the basis of antagonism to the object of discontent.

Once in the crowd, a person acquires several psychological characteristics that are not inherent in him as an individual. These features are determined for the behavior of a person who fell into the crowd. The behavior of the individual in the crowd is determined by the following characteristics:

Anonymity. An important feature of human self -perception when entering the crowd is a sense of anonymity. Having dissolved among people and starting to behave “like everyone else”, the individual ceases to be responsible for the acts committed. This is the main reason for the cruelty accompanying the action of aggressive mass. Participants in the crowds lose identity and become nameless.
Irresponsibility. Once in the crowd, the individual loses the feeling of responsibility, which is always a restraining factor.
Degradation. Having become part of the crowd, the individual seems to fall in development. Even being a cultural person in ordinary life, a participant in the crowd can turn into a “barbarus”. A person becomes violent and ferocious. There is a decrease in the level of intelligence.

Also, an increased emotionality is characterized by a person who has fallen into the crowd.

Crowd control: phenomenon, effect of psychological manipulations

The control of the crowd is a complex process. This is a real phenomenon. In situations with an organized mass acting according to a specific algorithm, it is easy to control.

Like other psychological phenomena, the psychology of the crowd is used by manipulators to achieve certain actions. The effects of psychological manipulations can be:

Suggestion to the mass of people of their opinion
Fundraising or selling a certain product
Attacks on other people
Vandalism
Agitation

Important: In those situations when the crowd forms spontaneously and shows aggression, it is impossible to stop it.

Loss of rational control: what does this mean, how to survive in the crowd?

Once in the crowd, the individual is under the influence of her mood. What does this mean, what leads to?

At this moment, no matter what emotions he experienced before getting into the mass.
A relaxed individual in a good mood, finding himself in an angry crowd, is infected by its aggression and begins to repeat aggressive slogans behind everyone.
And vice versa, a depressed person in a bad mood, charges with optimism, being among a joyful public.

In simple terms, a person loses rational control over his own emotions and a mental state, succumbing to the influence of the majority. Understanding how to get rid of such suppleness does not exist. Avoiding the crowd is the only thing that can protect a person from imitation of her.

The loss of rational control leads not only changes in the mood, but also more severe consequences. As an example, you can call medieval rituals of burning witches. Even when a person is confident that a woman is innocent, succumbing to the angry of the crowd, he will throw branches into the fire.

It is worth knowing: The consequences of loss of control can be sadness and regret.

How to survive in the crowd? It's simple if you fulfill some tips:

Keep calm and turn off emotions. You will panic later.
Try to leave the core of the crowd and move aside.
Do not go against the current. If you want to leave, then move along with the crowd, taking slightly sideways.
Try not to stand out and look your own, even if you got here by chance.
Do not speak out loud if your opinion differs from the mood and opinions of those people who are in the crowd.
Remove the scarf, fasten the jacket, hide the bag under the sweater. There is a risk of catching up for something-it may turn out to be fatal.
If it is very crowded around, grab yourself with your hands around the body, putting your elbows and covering your stomach and chest. So you will avoid fractures.
Try not to fall - they will trample right away. If you fall, grab the first leg you hit and halfzi upward.

In the crowd, breathe deeper. The air inside the crowd is often poor in oxygen.

How the crowd is formed: what is its essence, how the psychological impact is performed, techniques for manipulating people

The crowd is able to form a couple of ways:

Planned - Manipulators pump the situation with a specific task. For example, the collection of funds, an attempt to convey to the masses certain information, attracting attention.
Random -The reason for the crowds can be some kind of event. For example: accident, sale, performance of musicians. There are cases when during sales in supermarkets, people who turned out to be trampled by a mass of people rushing at discounts died.

The essence of the crowd - Aviation of the individual. This process occurs instantly. One has only to gather a large number of people. Once in a crowd, a person who has a high degree of psychological organization falls to the individual who has lower psychology.

How is a psychological effect performed? Here are techniques for manipulating people:

The concept of personality disappears in the crowd, the thoughts and feelings of one person are leveled. The crowd has a single soul.
Due to the dominance of unconsciousness, the crowd is always ordinary Or simply to me to be stupid, even if educated people are present in it.

There are a huge number of other techniques for manipulating people. Some require long training and practice, while others use others in everyday life, without even suspecting it. First of all, the manipulator is determined with the technique that is most suitable in this situation, a specific point of exposure is selected for this. Such points can be:

Human needs and interests
Worldview and beliefs
Features of character and habits
Emotional and mental state

In addition to the process of manipulation, knowledge of such techniques helps each person protect himself. This is a very interesting tactic that is available to few people.

From whom the crowd consists: the role of the leader

The basis of the crowd is always the instigators who form human accumulation. This can happen consciously or by accident. For example, any incident can attract a large number of onlookers, in such a situation the instigator does not plan to collect around people. Or vice versa, one or more leaders begin to attract people's attention in various ways, for example: provocations, shows, performance. Who does the crowd consist of? What is the role of a leader?

The crowd almost always consists of random passers -by and foundations.
In those situations where the crowd is formed purposefully, prepared people who share their opinion can join the leaders.
The crowd is always replenished with new people who increase its strength. This process is not amenable to control, because curious incidents attract people.
The role of the leader of the crowd is to create faith in anything. This is the main reason for its great influence.

The key indicator that determines the force of the influence of the leader on the crowd is charm. This is the quality that is the dominance of personality over the mind of another person.

The stages of the emergence of the crowd

The crowd is a chaotic, unbelievable education. Its formation has several stages:

Nucleus formation

The more active the core, the faster people gather. A factor causing an individual to join the crowd may be curiosity, or a specific goal, for example, become a member of the rally.

Circle

After the meeting of the public, its members become much more sensitive to external information. This is due to the fact that if you behave defiantly, then no one will notice this. Due to the large number of those gathered, no one pays attention to defiant acts.

Object of attention

At first, people are attracted by any event discussed inside the crowd. The emergence of another object of attention increases the cohesion of the gathered.

Activation of some participants

The tension increasing due to concentration on another object needs discharge. Some people, unable to withstand tension, begin to stimulate the gathered to action. Such actions can lead to various, poor consequences.

Types of the crowd in social psychology

Social psychology considers the crowd from various points of view. There are several varieties or types:

By the level of activity:

Human accumulation, which is characterized by the degree of its activity, in itself, is passive or active:

Active crowd: A mass of emotionally excited people who are ready to act here and now.
Passive crowd: moderately emotional mass, not striving for active actions.

A passive crowd lends itself to management, due to the fact that its participants are not distinguished by activity, but at the same time they are able to experience emotions.

By emotionality:

Any crowd is characterized by emotions. Such as:

Aggression
Delight
Panic

Enthusiastic people are not as dangerous as aggressive, however, the greatest threat always comes from a panicing crowd. She runs in different directions, indiscriminately. The panic crowd is characterized by an increased degree of trauma of its participants.

By spontaneity:

The crowd itself is a spontaneous education. However, it can be driven or organized.

An organized crowd always acts within the prepared plan. Such a group is controlled, since it is assembled with a specific purpose.
The driven crowd is gathering the instigators who control the participants. When the leader stops acting people, onlookers begin to disperse, because the spectacle ends.

Managing the crowd is simple or difficult? Let's figure it out. Read more more.

How to manage a crowd?

The control of the crowd is a complex process. When it is organized and performs actions according to the prepared plan, it is easy to manage it. In a situation of spontaneous education, an aggressive mass, it becomes impossible to stop and restrain the crowd. The study of the psychology of the crowd helped scientists determine the factors that give instruments of control over the accumulation of people:

Demonstration of its superiority. A person lost in the crowd begins to instinctively look for a strong participant. The spontaneously formed crowd has a primitive character, so the demonstration of its strength helps to control the people in it.
Expressiveness. An individual who accidentally finds himself in a crowd is subconsciously trying to find an object of attention, a person who can be trusted. Most often, an aggressive leader becomes such an object who expresses his own opinion loudly.
Information of the speech. An excited crowd craves not beautiful speeches, but actions. Change the mood of the crowd, directing it in the right direction, the correctly selected slogans help.

Separately, it is worth considering the psychology of the crowd in trading. Read further.

Psychology of the crowd in trading, on the exchange

Any trader opening a position, looks back at the masses and focuses on their mood. He thinks that the largest part of the players are professionals. They probably know what moments it is worth buying and selling assets. However, blind trust in the crowd when evaluating the market is often erroneous. Often, the movement behind the masses leads to large losses.

Some traders monitor their competitors and use their actions as a hint. At its core, the exchange is also a crowd, the participants of which put their own money for lowering or raising prices.

Crowd Syndrome: Examples from Psychology

The syndrome of the crowd is the tendency of a person who fell into any group to infect its mood, losing its own identity. Psychology knows many examples of manifestation of the crowd syndrome:

A person comes to work, at the office, being in a poor mood, but gradually becomes infected from the team with positive emotions and his mood improves.
The buyer comes to the supermarket, on the day of sale and finding himself in the crowd of “discount hunters”, begins to buy everything like them, even if he was not going to do this initially.

This is a real crowd syndrome. We continue, read on.

Loneliness in the crowd is incorrect communications: why is this happening, what kind of psychological state?

Sometimes it happens that even being surrounded by a large number of people, for example, in a metropolis, a person feels loneliness. He communicates with people for days: in the family, at work, at events. A person is surrounded by communication, but still complains. Why is this happening?

Psychologists call this improper communications in which a person is absent as a person. In itself, he is not interested in anyone. Others are only interested in what a person has, they try to benefit from him. Why does this happen, what kind of psychological state?

Such consumer communications dry a person from the inside, take all the energy.
Loneliness in the crowd is the most terrible form of loneliness. Its cause is an excess of communication when others are not interested in the personality of a person.
Correct communication is only that in which people are equivalent to each other and where there is understanding and exchange of emotions.

Below is still interesting information. Read further.

Fathers of mass culture, psychology of the crowd, peoples and masses - Gustav Lebon and G. Tard: what are the books about, what are they sanctified?

Works Gustava Lebona and Gabriel Tarda They became the basis for the social psychology of their time, but continue to maintain relevance to this day. These are the fathers of mass culture. What are their books about, what are they sanctified?

In these works of their books "Psychology of the crowd, peoples and masses" - Briefly sets out the conclusions of the authors about the psychology of human races and the behavior of crowds. Books consider the psychology of the peoples as a whole, as well as the behavior of the individual, as the cause of historical events.

How to influence a person - Chernihiv "Psychology of the crowd": Video

Tatyana Vladimirovna Chernigovskaya - The Soviet and Russian scientist in the field of neurosaus and psycholinguistics, as well as the theory of consciousness. Doctor of Biological Sciences, Doctor of Philology, Corresponding Member of the RAO. This scientist is a professor at the Department of the General Linguistics of St. Petersburg State University, head of the Cognitive Research Laboratory and the Department of Problems of Convergence of the Natural and Humanities of St. Petersburg State University.

Tatyana Vladimirovna knows how to influence a person. The psychology of the crowd is known to her very well. The professor transfers his knowledge to students, future psychologists. She assures that it is difficult to defeat the crowd, but possible. You just have to overthrow the leader or change the goals of the crowd. Look more in the video below. This is interesting.