Six zombie ideas in crowd psychology

 

What are zombie ideas? These are ideas that keep coming back, even though they have been thoroughly refuted by the evidence. They should be dead, but they won’t stay dead! They keep coming back because they serve certain interests or prejudices (or both). Here are six zombie ideas in crowd psychology that keep cropping up in everyday talk, in the news, among policymakers and practitioners, and in academic publications. And here’s why they’re wrong.

1. De-individuation

The most distinctive claim in the ‘de-individuation’ family of theories was inherited from Gustave Le Bon – the idea that being anonymous leads to a loss of self and hence uncontrolled, anti-normative behaviour. This idea could not cope with the evidence that conditions of anonymity in fact are associated with a wide range of behaviours, including accentuation of pro-social behaviours. There is little evidence that anonymity leads to a ‘de-individuated’ state of reduced private self-awareness. Rather, anonymity makes group identities more salient and hence leads to more, not less, conformity to relevant situational norms.

Key reading: Postmes & Spears (1998)

Gustave Le Bon headstone

(Pierre-Yves Beaudouin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

2. Groupthink

While groupthink is supposedly a pitfall of small groups and organizations rather than crowds, I include it here as it’s another example of an anti-collectivist concept. It is used loosely by commentators to refer to any situation where group members prioritise the group’s own ideas over critical or external views. For example, some of those involved in decision-making at the height of the Covid pandemic have used the idea of groupthink to explain organizational failures in decision-making. The distinctive claim of the ‘groupthink’ concept is that highly cohesive groups will be subject to concurrence-seeking at the expense of critical inquiry, leading to faulty decisions. A big problem for this idea is that there is not much evidence that greater cohesiveness leads to worse decision-making. Rather than the tendency to ignore critical evidence being a function of groupness, it’s more likely to be an effect of particular group norms (for example that value loyalty).

Key reading: Aldag (2022)

3. Mass panic

Aside from the profound problems of judging whether behaviour counts as ‘panic’ in an emergency (what is reasonable behaviour in this situation?) and the related problem of trying to import a polysemic everyday term into scientific explanation, there is another basic problem. There is no evidence that people in crowds are typically uncontrolled, selfish or competitive in emergencies. The common finding of social support among people in emergencies adds to the problems of this concept.

Key reading: Clarke (2002)

4. Contagion

One of the most popular concepts in the social and behavioural sciences, ‘contagion’ is often used synonymously with spread and social influence. But there is little evidence that mere exposure alone is sufficient to prompt emulation. Group boundaries in the transmission of behaviours and emotions demonstrate this. Even for supposedly basic processes like so-called emotional contagion, reviews of the evidence suggest that the mimicry involved is not automatic, but rather relates to communication goals that already involve an emotional orientation to the other person.

Key reading: Drury et al. (2019)

5. The hooligan

The hooligan is a concept from sociology more than psychology, but it is a good example of a dispositional explanation. For the earliest beginnings of crowd psychology as a science, some have claimed that crowd conflict occurs through the convergence of certain kinds of individuals (usually with criminal, violent, or poorly socialized dispositions). From the 1960s urban riots in the USA to the 2011 English riots, proponents of such ideas have failed to produce the required evidence. In the football context, of course some groups seek conflict, but this in itself can’t explain collective behaviour. As Stott and Pearson explain, the 'hooligan' concept has little explanatory power: ‘disorder’ sometimes occurs when known ‘hooligans’ are not present; and when known ‘hooligans’ are present, ‘disorder’ doesn’t always take place.

Key reading: Pearson & Stott (2022)

6. Mob mentality

An overarching zombie idea, that links many of the above, but which also includes the distinctive claims that in crowds people revert to a simpler, less intelligent, and more primitive or archaic psychology, under the influence of which behaviour tends to gullibility, barbarism, loss of control, and violence. The fundamental problem here is two-fold. First, if this is a real tendency it cannot easily explain the majority of crowds, which are peaceful and pro-social. Second, the suggestion of a universal tendency like this cannot explain the social form of behaviour when there is crowd violence. To explain the distinct targets of the sans culottes, urban rioters, football fans and many others, and the sophistication in even the most violent crowd, it makes better sense to refer to their identities, group norms, and values.

Key reading: Reicher (1984)

After George Floyd: Why does civil unrest spread between cities?

Protests and riots that began in Minneapolis after police killed an unarmed African American have now spread to over 23 states. I recently led a large-scale programme of research on the wave of riots in England in 2011 to address the question of how such events spread. The UK and US waves were different in important ways – most obviously, in the US many of the collective events have been peaceful protests, whereas in England only the initial protest was peaceful. Yet there are some striking similarities between them, as well as with other waves of riots. This similarity suggests that some of the same processes are operating.

It's necessary to begin by examining the meaning of the precipitating incident and the social categories involved. What did ‘they’ do, and who are ‘we’?

In Minneapolis 2020, as in Tottenham in 2011 (and as in Watts 1965, Brixton 1981 and many others), actions by police officers against an individual encapsulated the whole relationship between a wider group and an institution. In each case, the violence inflicted was seen as embodying the history of relations between police and Black / African-American people, where police harassment, assault, and collective humiliation were a daily experience.

Our research found that a local history of police harassment was key predictor of which districts rioted in London in 2011. Other predictors were local deprivation and negative attitudes to the police. Research in the US has found that race is another predictor of where riots occur. These factors correlate, of course: African-Americans are more likely to live in deprived districts and to be subject to police harassment and killing.

But these factors are relatively constant. They help explain which cities riot, but they don’t tell us when and how protest or rioting in one city influences people in other cities to join a wave. 

We found three types of social-psychological processes that helped explain how a wave occurs. 

First, there is spread via a shared identity with those in other cities. This is where people in different locations each define themselves in terms of a similar shared history of injustice at racist policing and resistance to that injustice. Our interviewees said of the police killing of Mark Duggan in 2011, ‘that could have been me’ and ‘that could have been my friends’. This shared identity with those rioting in response to the killing provided a normative motivation to do the same in their own district: the police needed to be shown that they cannot get away with murder. In the case of the George Floyd events, African American identity, defined in terms of a history of police violence, is clearly a key factor leading people in many cities to feel the same sense of injustice and anger as those in Minneapolis. For these people, and for others who feel solidarity with African Americans, action to express that sense of injustice – including punishing the police – is an enactment of common identity.

Second, there is a process that social movement researchers call capacity to mobilize and protest researchers call collective efficacy. In our research, we use the term empowerment. This captures the experience of one’s social relations becoming transformed as power shifts from the police to the crowd. In the English riots, some participants didn’t necessarily identify with the original rioters. But they could see that a common outgroup -- the police – were becoming weakened. This empowered them to participate in their own area, including going beyond the initial issue to enact long-standing grievances and desires. 

People’s perceptions of the identity and empowerment of others was crucial. They came onto the streets when they not only identified with the other location or were empowered by police weakness but also believed that others locally felt the same way. This in turn was the basis of expectations of support for ingroup normative actions – in this case against the police and some properties.

The third process that helps explain riot spread concerns police perceptions. We found that previous rioting led to a heightened level of organizational vigilance in the police. This state of expectancy can lead to pre-emptive forms of police intervention -- such as violent dispersal of a non-violent crowd. Where people in the crowd experience these police actions as illegitimate and indiscriminate, there are significant unintended consequences. Such actions by police serve to unite the crowd – both those who did not originally intend to fight and those who did -- around a new norm of fighting back against the police. 

Some of the coverage of the current wave of US riots has tried to suggest that powerful agitators are involved, with the implication that the crowd is easily swayed. Like the ‘contagion’ metaphor that is so frequently employed in these contexts, it suggests an unthinking crowd and therefore detracts from the meaningfulness of crowd action. Notions of mindless influence do not explain who joins in (and who doesn’t). Nor do they explain the widespread selectivity of targets. Such notions also let the authorities off the hook. As our research has shown, and the events across the US illustrate, the spread of riots is a complex social phenomenon grounded in collective definitions of identity, injustice, and changing power relations between groups.

What is a crowd? Implications for computer simulation

http://www.peoplemovementonline.com/what-is-a-crowd-implications-for-computer-simulation-dr-anne-templeton-and-dr-john-drury/

A 10-point listicle on journalist accounts of the public responses to events in Oxford Street, November 2017

A brief commentary for journalists and others on the events in Oxford Street, Friday 24th November 2017, when members of the public responded to fears of gunfire or a terrorist attack.

1.    In the footage from Oxford Street, many people are looking where they are going, assessing the situation, or otherwise moving in an orderly way, or standing around etc. Only a few people scream.

2.    Research evidence on emergency evacuations shows that coordination and order is common. Pushing and trampling occurs rarely and tends to be in narrow exits that are unfamiliar. Coordination reduces when people don’t see themselves as a ‘we’ or ‘us’.

3.    It is not clear that the number of injuries reported is particularly high for the number of people involved. 

4.    Research on fires shows that people often underestimate danger and/ or delay their exit (to respond, to stay with others). This, not over-reaction, is a main cause of fatalities.

5.    Research shows that there isn’t indiscriminate ‘contagion’. People attend most to, and follow the example of, those they judge to be relevant for the context, who are often people they define as similar to self.

6.    The word ‘panic’ was common in the news accounts, but researchers reject the term because it is hard to evidence.

7.    What is gained by saying ‘panic’ (rather than 'fleeing') is the implication that the behaviour is an overreaction, is unreasonable. But what should people do when the information they have is that there is a threat? ‘Sudden fear’ or ‘fleeing’ are more neutral terms.

8.    Journalists seemed to describe responses as ‘panic’ because it wasn’t after all a real emergency; but in many real emergencies people don’t know whether it is real or not (including fires and terrorist attacks).

9.    A first irony of the journalists’ use of the term ‘panic’ for the public response is that the government’s advice is to ‘run’ (this is not necessarily an endorsement).

10. A second irony is that the image of a vulnerable panic-prone public, rather than collectively resilient, is precisely what ISIS and others seek to achieve.

The social psychology of the Hajj

This week, the annual Hajj takes place in Mecca (Makkah) and the other holy places nearby. This Muslim pilgrimage is one of the world’s largest crowd events – the official figure for those attending last year was 1,862,909. The Hajj has been called the world’s ‘global gathering’ because it is a place where Muslims from all over the world come together. The Hajj has also been the scene of a number of tragedies, including the crush in 2015 where over 700 people died at a crossroads near the holy city of Mina.

Despite its global significance and importance to so many people, few psychological studies have been carried out on the Hajj. Most research studies of the events are from medical or engineering perspectives. Hani Alnabulsi, my PhD student, and I recently had a unique opportunity to study the experience and behaviour of the Hajj crowd, through his research on the 2011 and 2012 pilgrimages. As part of his PhD at Sussex, Hani carried out dozens of interviews and surveyed over 1000 pilgrims, all in and around the Grand Mosque, Mecca. This unique data-set allowed us to address a number of important questions on the social psychology of the Hajj for the first time. Hani finished his PhD in 2015, and we are now in the process of writing up the work as journal articles. Here is a summary of some of the key findings.

Inset shows density of 6ppm2 inside the Mosque

How do people feel safe in such dense crowds?

In a first analysis, we looked at predictors of feeling safe in the Hajj crowd, which can reach densities of up to nine people per metre² near the Ka’aba. We tested the hypothesis that the effect of crowd density on feeling safe would vary depending on whether there is shared social identification in the crowd. Analysis of the data showed that the negative effect of crowd density on reported safety was indeed moderated by social identification with the crowd. Whereas low identifiers reported reduced safety with greater crowd density, high identifiers actually reported increased safety with greater crowd density. Mediation analysis suggested that a reason that some people felt safer was the perception that other crowd members were supportive. We also found that those from Arab countries and Iran felt especially safe at the Hajj compared with pilgrims from other countries. These differences in reported safety across national groups also seemed to be because these groups experienced greater crowd identification and perceived support than other groups.

Psychological changes, including changed attitudes to other social groups

Towards the end of his autobiography, the activist Malcolm X described in compelling terms the revelation he experienced on attending the Hajj:

My pilgrimage broadened my scope. It blessed me with new insight. In two weeks in the Holy Land, I saw what I had never seen in thirty-nine years here in America. I saw all races, all colors, - blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans – in true brotherhood! In unity! … It was in the Holy World that my attitude was changed, by what I experienced there, and by what I witnessed there, in terms of brotherhood – not just brotherhood toward me, but brotherhood between all men, of all nationalities and complexions, who were there. (pp. 478-479, emphasis in original)

His was not a unique experience. A brilliant ‘natural experiment’ carried out by Clingingsmith and colleagues on a large sample of Pakistanis famously showed that participation in the Hajj can lead to both more positive attitudes towards other groups and increased commitment to Muslim identity. In a second analysis, we have been investigating the process underlying these psychological changes. In line with contact theory and the social identity approach, we found that a key mechanism explaining increased positive attitudes to outgroups was identification with the Hajj crowd, which operates like common ingroup identity. In line with a social identity account of identity enactment, we found that the key mechanism explaining enhanced identification was giving social support to others. Our finding that participation in an all-Muslim gathering increases positive views of other groups (including non-Muslims) through crowd identification offers an alternative perspective to claims about the supposed role of such gatherings in encouraging intolerance.

Place, space and the virtuous cycle of cooperation

The requirement to cooperate at Hajj is not only a shared spiritual value, but also a practical necessity due to the high levels of crowd density. In a third analysis, we sought to understand the determinants of cooperation in and around the Grand Mosque during the pilgrimage. In Hani’s interviews, pilgrims described ecstatic experiences on seeing and being close to the Ka’aba. However, precisely because of its spiritual value, many pilgrims seek to be close to the Ka’aba at the same time. This leads to negative (e.g., competitive pushing) as well as positive (e.g., social support) experiences in the Mosque. Our survey analysis found that evidence of help was high across the participants, but was more likely to be reported in the plaza just outside the Mosque than inside the Mosque itself. We also found evidence of what we called a virtuous cycle of cooperation: seeing others in the crowd giving support predicted seeing them as good Muslims which predicted identification with the crowd which itself predicted giving help to others. This predictive pattern occurred in the plaza but not the Mosque itself, and suggests the role of place and space in modulating identity processes.

Conclusion

In the past, where the social psychology of the Hajj has been addressed it has been through concepts such as ‘panic’ and ‘stampede’. However, use of these concepts is not based on systematic study of pilgrims’ behaviour and experience. In addition, such concepts serve to blame the crowd, rather than mismanagement, for disasters. Hani Alnabulsi’s PhD research is the first to bring modern social psychological concepts to the Hajj – in particular the concepts of social identity and group norm. We argue that these concepts will not only provide a more accurate understanding of behaviour at the Hajj, they can also help contribute to a safer Hajj in the future by informing the planning and management of this global gathering.