GUSTAVE LE BON - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CROWDS

7 September 2024

GUSTAVE LE BON

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CROWDS

Gustave Le Bon’s The Psychology of Crowds (1895) looks into how individuals behave differently when part of a crowd, losing their personal identity and rationality. Crowds, according to Le Bon, are driven by emotion rather than intellect, making them susceptible to manipulation by charismatic leaders who simplify complex ideas to create powerful, collective beliefs. This transformation allows individuals to act without personal responsibility, often leading to irrational or destructive behaviour.

Le Bon argues that crowds are guided by primal instincts, like aggression and violence, and are capable of extreme actions that defy social norms. He highlights how ideas, when adopted by a crowd, take on a near-religious significance, commanding devotion and becoming immune to critical thought or opposition. Leaders who project strength and authority can harness these emotions, shaping the crowd’s beliefs and actions.

Le Bon also warns of the invisible tyranny of collective thought, where individuals adopt ideas unconsciously, without questioning them. This makes crowds a powerful but dangerous force in society, influencing both positive and negative mass movements.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

   - Overview of Crowd Psychology

   - The Role of Crowds in Society

2. The Nature of Crowds

   - Psychological Transformation in Crowds

   - How Crowds Differ from Individuals

3. The Mentality of Crowds

   - Emotional Over Intellect

   - The Power of Suggestion

   - The Collective Unconscious

4. Crowd Dynamics

   - Unity and Cohesion in Crowds

   - Loss of Personal Responsibility

   - How Crowds Develop a Collective Will

5. The Role of Leaders in Crowds

   - Charismatic Leadership

   - Manipulating Crowds through Simplified Ideas

   - The Influence of Authority and Power

6. The Irrational Behaviour in Crowds

   - Aggression, Violence, and Primal Instincts

   - The Crowd’s Tendency Toward Destruction

7. The Religious Nature of Crowds

   - The Near-Religious Devotion to Ideas

   - How Simplified Ideas Become Sacred

8. The Contagion of Ideas and Emotions

   - How Emotions and Actions Spread in Crowds

   - Crowd Contagion versus Rational Thought

9. The Tyranny of the Crowd

   - The Invisible Influence of Collective Thought

   - The Loss of Individuality and Autonomy

10. The Dual Nature of Crowds

    - Crowds as a Force for Good and Evil

    - The Fickleness of Crowd Loyalty

11. The Legacy of Crowd Psychology

    - The Impact of Crowds on History and Society

    - The Lasting Influence of The Psychology of Crowds

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1. Introduction

- Overview of Crowd Psychology

- The Role of Crowds in Society

In his book La Psychologie des Foules, published in 1895, Gustave Le Bon writes: "The masses have never thirsted for truth. They turn away from evidence that does not suit them, preferring to deify error if it seduces them. He who can supply them with illusions becomes easily their master; he who attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim."

An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand among other grains of sand, blown about by the wind at will. The exploration of crowd psychology, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, marked an important turning point in philosophical and social thought. The idea that individuals behave differently in a crowd than when alone became a major topic of interest, raising broader questions about the nature of human behaviour. 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously declared: "We have a very imperfect knowledge of the human heart if we do not also examine it in crowds." Similarly, Gustave Le Bon argued that to understand the true nature of history and human behaviour, one must first comprehend the dynamics of the crowd.

2. The Nature of Crowds

- Psychological Transformation in Crowds

- How Crowds Differ from Individuals

For Le Bon, a crowd is not merely a gathering of people; it is a psychological entity united by a common idea, belief, or ideology. Le Bon asserts that the cohesion of a crowd arises from a sort of psychological alchemy that fuses individuals into a single entity with its own will, fundamentally altering their behaviour and motivations. According to Le Bon, when an individual joins a crowd, they undergo a profound psychological transformation that erases their individuality. They no longer function as a distinct person but become part of the collective entity that is the crowd, losing their autonomy and merging into the group’s behaviour.

Le Bon describes this transformation by writing: "He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will as an individual." We often face the harsh reality of personal responsibility. Living as an individual means fully bearing the weight of our decisions, actions, and the inherent limitations of our own abilities. This can create an overwhelming burden, a persistent sense of insignificance and powerlessness that many find difficult to escape.

3. The Mentality of Crowds

- Emotional Over Intellect

- The Power of Suggestion

- The Collective Unconscious

When faced with the challenges of life, the solitary individual may feel small, powerless, and overwhelmed by the complexities and responsibilities of existence. However, when an individual joins a crowd or mass movement, something transformative happens. The weight of individual responsibility is lifted, at least temporarily, as the person merges into the larger entity of the crowd. In this collective environment, the individual’s personal burdens and limitations are absorbed by the energy and purpose of the group. The sense of isolation and powerlessness that once defined their experience as an individual is replaced by a powerful sense of belonging and shared strength.

4. Crowd Dynamics

- Unity and Cohesion in Crowds

- Loss of Personal Responsibility

- How Crowds Develop a Collective Will

Le Bon argues that in a crowd, even those who might normally feel ridiculous, ignorant, or envious are freed from their personal insignificance. Instead, they are imbued with a new perception of power—a power that is raw, temporary, but seemingly immense. He suggests that the forces that unite crowds are deeply rooted in the human psyche, exploiting a primal desire for connection, identity, and purpose. However, these same forces also make crowds highly susceptible to manipulation and capable of extreme behaviour that defies the norms of individual conduct.

5. The Role of Leaders in Crowds

- Charismatic Leadership

- Manipulating Crowds through Simplified Ideas

- The Influence of Authority and Power

Le Bon writes: "Isolated, he may be a cultured individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian, that is, a creature acting by instinct." His exploration of crowd psychology looks into the darker side of human behaviour, revealing why crowds are often prone to acts of barbarism and immorality. While acknowledging that crowds are capable of both great good and great evil, Le Bon argues that more often than not, crowds tend toward the latter, engaging in destructive, irrational, and unethical actions. To explain this phenomenon, Le Bon contends that it stems from the primal instincts residing in every individual.

According to Le Bon, the human psyche retains the legacy of our ancestors—a collection of wild and destructive instincts that have been passed down through the ages. These instincts, such as aggression, violence, and a propensity for chaos, are remnants of a time when survival depended on such traits. In the life of the isolated individual, however, these instincts are generally contained by social norms, personal responsibility, and the fear of consequences. Acting on these base impulses in everyday life would not only be dangerous but would also lead to social ostracism, legal repercussions, and a host of other negative consequences that most individuals seek to avoid.

6. Irrational Behaviour in Crowds

- Aggression, Violence, and Primal Instincts

- The Crowd’s Tendency Toward Destruction

However, Le Bon argues that the crowd provides a kind of psychological camouflage, allowing individuals to blend in and lose their sense of personal identity. This absorption into the collective offers a powerful sense of anonymity and a perception of immunity from the usual consequences of their actions. In a crowd, individuals feel as though they are no longer acting as themselves. Instead, they become part of a larger, indistinct entity that assumes responsibility for their actions. This dissolution of the individual self into the crowd effectively lifts the constraints that normally govern behaviour.

Le Bon explains this in his book, writing: "Our wild and destructive instincts are the dormant legacy in all of us from primitive ages. In the life of the isolated individual, it would be dangerous for him to satisfy these instincts, while his absorption into an irresponsible crowd, where consequences are avoided, gives him complete freedom to follow them." He adds that the violence of crowd sentiment is also heightened, especially in heterogeneous crowds, by the absence of any sense of responsibility.

7. The Religious Nature of Crowds

- The Near-Religious Devotion to Ideas

- How Simplified Ideas Become Sacred

For Le Bon, history teaches us that from the moment the moral forces that underpinned a civilisation lose their strength, its final dissolution is triggered by these unconscious and brutal crowds, rightly referred to as "barbarians." Le Bon emphasises that within a crowd, every feeling and act is highly contagious. He asserts that emotions, ideas, and actions spread through a crowd like wildfire, unchecked by the rational discernment that would typically temper individual behaviour. This contagiousness is so powerful that it overrides self-interest, pushing individuals to sacrifice their own needs, goals, and desires for the sake of the collective interest.

He illustrates this point when he declares: "In a crowd, every feeling and every act is contagious, and contagious to such a degree that an individual willingly sacrifices his personal interest for the collective interest." In his work 'Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious', Carl Jung explains this phenomenon. He writes: "A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than an individual experience. This is due to the fact that when many people gather to share a common emotion, the total psyche that emerges from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will resemble more that of an animal, which explains why the ethical attitude of large organisations is always questionable."

Jung adds: "If people come together and form a crowd, then the dynamics of the collective man are unleashed—beasts or demons that lie dormant in each until they become part of a crowd. The man in the mass unconsciously descends to a lower moral and intellectual level, to a level that is always present beneath the threshold of consciousness, ready to emerge as soon as it is activated by the formation of a crowd."

8. The Contagion of Ideas and Emotions

- How Emotions and Actions Spread in Crowds

- Crowd Contagion versus Rational Thought

Thus, Le Bon’s description of crowds in his work is one where reason is eclipsed by emotion, where the collective mind is guided more by instinct than intellect, and where the lines between right and wrong blur in the fervour of collective action. As Le Bon saw it, a crowd is composed of individuals who are, by nature, mediocre in intellect and incapable of fully understanding the scope and depth of complex ideas in their original form. He writes: "How many crowds have faced death heroically for beliefs, ideas, and phrases they barely understood."

Le Bon explains that for an idea to resonate with a crowd, it must undergo a process of simplification. This transformation involves stripping the idea of its complexities, nuances, and intellectual subtlety to distil it into a more digestible and easily understood version. The crowd does not engage in the kind of critical analysis or reasoned debate one might expect from an individual thinker or a small group of intellectuals. Instead, it operates on a more emotional and instinctive level, drawn to ideas presented in a bold, clear, and often simplistic manner.

This necessity for simplification is not just about making the idea comprehensible; it is about making it compelling, memorable, and capable of eliciting a strong emotional response. Gustave Le Bon explains this by writing: "Ideas are only accessible to crowds after they have taken a very simple form. They must often undergo the most radical transformations to become popular. It is especially in the case of philosophical or scientific ideas of some elevation that we see how profound the modifications they must undergo to be lowered to the level of the crowd’s intelligence."

No matter how great or true an idea may have been at its origin, it is stripped of almost everything that constituted its elevation and grandeur simply by entering the intellectual range of crowds and exerting influence over them.

9. The Tyranny of the Crowd

- The Invisible Influence of Collective Thought

- The Loss of Individuality and Autonomy

According to Le Bon, when individuals in a crowd adopt simplified ideas, they do so not with a detached or rational mind, but with a fervent intensity similar to religious devotion. This attachment transforms ideas into powerful, almost sacred entities that command complete allegiance and devotion, regardless of whether the ideas themselves contain explicitly religious content.

Le Bon asserts that a person does not need to worship a traditional deity to exhibit religious behaviour. Instead, religiosity is characterised by the total submission of one’s will, the intense passion of fanaticism, and the unwavering commitment of all mental resources to a cause or an individual who becomes the focal point of one’s life. In the context of a crowd, the ideas that drive collective action are elevated to a status akin to that of mysterious deities. They are revered, protected, and followed with the blind faith and zeal one might associate with religious worship.

This quasi-religious relationship between a crowd and its guiding ideas can be observed in the way crowds react to challenges or critiques of those ideas. Just as devout followers might react to heresies against their faith, members of a crowd will defend their adopted beliefs with fervour, often disregarding reason or contrary evidence. The ideas are not to be questioned or dissected but accepted in their entirety and defended at all costs. The belief system of the crowd, even if rooted in atheism or secular ideologies, takes on the characteristics of a religious creed, with rituals, symbols, and an emotional commitment that transcends logic.

Le Bon observes that even non-belief or atheism, if adopted by the masses, could take on the outward forms of a religious cult. He writes: "If it were possible to induce the masses to adopt atheism, unbelief would exhibit all the intolerant ardour of a religious sentiment, and in its outward forms, would soon become a cult."

10. The Dual Nature of Crowds

- Crowds as a Force for Good and Evil

- The Fickleness of Crowd Loyalty

Moreover, the crowd’s relationship with its guiding ideas often involves ritualistic behaviour. These rituals may take the form of gatherings, chants, or other symbolic acts that reinforce the collective belief and strengthen the bonds between members. Such rituals serve to reaffirm the crowd’s commitment to its cause and solidify the emotional connection with the ideas at its core. This type of ritual reinforcement is another parallel with traditional religious practices, where repeated actions and symbols are used to maintain and deepen faith.

Gustave Le Bon argued that the ideas that influence and unite crowds do not originate from the crowd itself but from the minds of exceptional individuals—visionaries, leaders, and thinkers who stand apart from the masses. According to Le Bon, these great individuals possess the intellectual prowess and creative capacity to generate powerful ideas that have the potential to shape societies and movements. However, there is a crucial gap between the complexity of these original ideas and the collective mind of the crowd.

Le Bon asserts that the ideas used by leaders are not merely tools of persuasion; they are elevated to the status of mystical forces, almost divine in their power to captivate the minds of the masses. The vagueness and ambiguity of these ideas contribute to their mystique. They are not clearly defined or understood, which makes them all the more powerful. The crowd does not demand clarity or rational explanation. On the contrary, it is the very obscurity of these ideas that makes them captivating, as they fill the void of the unknown with wonder and awe.

This reverence for the mysterious does not stem from understanding but from a deeply ingrained tendency in humans to venerate what is not fully grasped. Le Bon observes that skilful leaders who manipulate these ideas wield immense power over crowds. They understand that the crowd does not respond to rational argument or gentle persuasion, but to symbols of authority, strength, and fear. Crowds display a docile respect for force and are unimpressed by kindness, which they perceive as weakness. This psychological trait makes crowds more responsive to leaders who project an image of power and domination rather than those who appeal to reason or benevolence.

11. The Legacy of Crowd Psychology

- The Impact of Crowds on History and Society

- The Lasting Influence of The Psychology of Crowds

The crowd longs for figures of authority who embody strength and determination, even if that strength takes the form of tyranny or oppression. However, Le Bon also highlights the fickle nature of crowd loyalty. The same leaders who are exalted and revered can quickly become the targets of scorn and derision if they lose their power. When a despot is stripped of authority, the crowd no longer sees them as a formidable figure, but as a mere mortal, vulnerable and weak. At that moment, the crowd’s respect turns to contempt as it tramples the fallen leader with the same fervour it once idolised them.

Le Bon argued that many of our actions are motivated by ideas and beliefs that are deeply rooted, often without our conscious awareness or understanding. We adopt ideologies and values not through a process of deliberate and critical examination, but through more automatic absorption from our environment, family, education, media, and cultural milieu.

Le Bon was convinced that the most insidious form of tyranny is not the visible and overt control exercised by external authorities, but the invisible and unconscious control that goes unexamined. He writes: "The tyranny exercised unconsciously over men’s minds is the only real tyranny, for it cannot be fought against."