Crowd psychology.

A documentary presented by Steve Jones examining collective behaviour and its management. Jones begins by comparing the views of two political thinkers separated by over 100 years; a speech made by David Cameron following the riots of 2011 and a passage from French sociologist Gustave Le Bon’s ‘The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind’ published in 1895. The two sources express surprisingly similar sentiments. Le Bon characterised mobs as possessing an irrational ‘collective mind’. But what is a crowd, and what can they tell us about ourselves as individuals? According to Professor Steve Reicher, crowd psychology emerged from an elite fear of the ‘dangerous classes’; previously disparate populations brought together by the industrial revolution. Daniel Pick, historian and psychoanalyst, portrays Le Bon’s crowd as having a psychology of its own, irreducible to that of individual participants. This view, he claims, reveals a contempt for ordinary people that resonates to this day. Social science takes a more objective approach. The Kerner Report, published in the wake of the Martin Luther King riots of 1968, revealed that participants were not on margins of society, that violence was targeted rather than random and debunked ‘the agitator theory’; the idea that mobs act under direction. Yet, as Reicher explains, these same myths surfaced in the analysis of the 2011 riots. John Drury, social psychologist at the University of Sussex, gives two definitions of the crowd; those who are physically together and those who are psychologically together. While the former can be an alienating experience, the latter is uniting. Architect Tom Jones from London firm Populous discusses his work on the 2012 Olympic stadium. For safety reasons, the stadium is an all-seater model; Jones asks whether this creates a sea of individuals rather than a crowd of supporters. Musicologist Lesley Chamberlain discusses the unruly 1913 premier of Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’, suggesting the uproar was engineered by Diaghilev who intentionally invited divergent groups. But while crowd behaviour can be manipulated, are there other, less conscious aspects of crowd psychology? Theoretical physicist Zoltán Néda discusses cyclical patterns of applause at concerts; the inference being that in the absence of a leader audiences start choreographing themselves. Le Bon's belief that the erratic nature of crowds made them easy to manipulate appealed to the far right, validating their endorsement of powerful dictatorial figures. Reicher and Pick discuss Le Bon’s 'misogynistic' portrayal of crowd behaviour (characterised as fickle, hysterical etc.), a notion that was revisited in Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. Mussolini and Roosevelt were also known admirers of Le Bon, asserts historian Gregory Shaya. Following the collapse of the fascist dictatorships, science developed an interest in crowd psychology. In his 1960s book, ‘Crowds and Power’ Nobel prize-winning novelist Elias Canetti examined the triumph of the demagogues from the perspective of both scientist and novelist (having studied chemistry at the University of Vienna). Chamberlain discusses Canetti’s use of meteorological metaphor, likening crowds to wind. Jones returns the conversation to architecture, drawing parallels between Le Bon’s fear of crowd behaviour and the wide boulevards of his native Paris, designed for controlling the rioting masses. The topic remains a concern for today’s architects; Tom Jones’ computerised evacuation simulators employ the principles of physics, representing individuals as moving particles. Yet architects are aware of the need to take emotions into account when designing large structures, as panic can lead to irrational behaviours. Drury discusses a well-known photograph from the 2005 London bombings, featuring a masked woman being led to safety. The image, he says, contradicts notions of the selfish, irrational behaviour of crowds in emergencies. In fact, evidence suggests that social rules continue to apply in highly pressured situations. Jennifer Cole of the Royal United Services Institute researches the management of disasters, and refutes the traditional view of the malignant, irrational crowd. The initial fight or flight mechanism, she contends, is swiftly replaced with altruism. Lately there has been a change in emphasis on crowd psychology. Martin Scothern, formerly of South Yorkshire Police, recalls the confusion and violence of the miner strikes of the 1980s. He now works with Dr Clifford Stott, expert on mass psychology, on the practical management of riots. The danger, Stott explains, emerges when social identity is defined at the level of the group rather than the individual. Yet identities and loyalties can fluctuate in the moment as a result of how different groups interact. Legal affairs journalist Fiona Bawdon cites contagion and a fear of missing out as motivating factors for the 2011 rioters, who were the product of a ‘herd mentality’. Reicher finds such terms misleading, as experimental evidence suggests that individuals only copy others' behaviour if they identify with the crowd. The answer, he suggests, lies in engagement rather than repression – when police use force they risk unifying the crowd against them and inciting further aggression. Le Bon may have been right about the dangers of the crowd, Jones concludes, but for the wrong reasons. Crowds can be more than the sum of their parts, but only when forced to see themselves as a united body with a common enemy.