The Behavior of Crowds: A Psychological StudyMartin, Everett Dean
Science
The Behavior of Crowds: A Psychological Study
Martin, Everett Dean
Crowds
We may say then that directly or indirectly the instincts are
the prime movers of all human activity; by the conative or
impulsive force of some instinct (or of some habit derived from
an instinct), every train of thought, however cold and
passionless it may seem, is borne along toward its end, and
every bodily activity is initiated and sustained. The
instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and
supply the driving-power by which all mental activities are
sustained; and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the
most highly developed mind is but a means toward those ends, is
but the instrument by which these impulses seek their
satisfactions.... These impulses are the mental forces that
maintain and shape all the life of individuals and societies,
and in them we are confronted with the central mystery of life
and mind and will.
This is all very good so far as it goes. But I confess that I am
somewhat at loss to know just what it explains so far as crowd-behavior
is concerned. Do these instincts and sentiments operate the same under
all social conditions? Are some of them suppressed by society and forced
to seek their satisfaction in roundabout ways? If so, how? Moreover, I
fail to find in present-day social psychology, any more than in the
writings of Herbert Spencer, Sumner, Ward, and others, any clear
distinction between the characteristic behavior of crowds and other
forms of social activity. Only the school of Le Bon has shown any
definite appreciation of these facts. It is to Le Bon, therefore, in
spite of the many and just criticisms of his work, that we must turn
for a discussion of the crowd as a problem apart from social psychology
in general. Le Bon saw that the mind of the crowd demanded special
psychological study, but many of the psychological principles which he
used in solving the problem were inadequate to the task. Certain of his
conclusions were, therefore, erroneous. Since the close of the
nineteenth century, however, psychology has gained much insight into the
secret springs of human activity. Possibly the most significant
achievement in the history of this science is Freud's work in analytical
psychology.
So much light has been thrown upon the unconscious by Freud and other
analytical psychologists, that psychology in all its branches is
beginning to take some of Freud's discoveries into account. Strictly
speaking, psychoanalysis is a therapeutic method. It has, however,
greatly enriched our knowledge of mental pathology, and thus much of its
data has become indispensable to general psychology and to social
psychology in particular.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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