Existential Psychology

Mob Mentality

By  | 

Have you ever let yourself be swept away by the emotion of a large group? Whether the scene is a sporting event, political rally, rock concert, or dangerous mob the psychological principles are pretty much the same.

One of the central paradoxes of being human is that we cannot be sane and happy without relating to and connecting with our fellows yet at the same time we cannot be sane and happy without maintaining our individuality and having the freedom to develop into the fullest versions of our Selves.

One of the areas where these competing tendencies are seen in clearest relief is the romantic relationship. Partners fuse to form a couple and usually derive a sense of strength and security from the setup. But each person, if mentally healthy, also feels compelled to maintain a sense of separateness and not feel completely engulfed. It’s nice being ‘us’ but let’s not forget about ‘you’ and ‘me’.

I can still remember the first time I entered the Hofbrau house at Oktoberfest in Germany. I was blown away by the energy of the crowd and the mob atmosphere. A wall of sound and raw emotion literally hit us as we ventured in. I looked over at a friend and I can only imagine my facial expression mirrored his, which was a mixture of shock, excitement, and maybe a hint of fear. Anyone who has been there will know what I’m talking about. This group atmosphere, the collective decision to let go and not play by normal societal rules, was palpable and I had to consciously remind myself to not get too carried away by the debauchery.

Individual freedom is a great gift that has been hard-won over the last few centuries in the West but it also carries with it the tremendous burden of responsibility. If you are free then your thoughts, actions, and emotions are yours alone and you are responsible for their effects. It’s easy to see why people unconsciously grab on to opportunities to meld with the group and let go of that personal responsibility for a while. The irony is that doing so feels liberating but in actuality you are ceding your freedom to the aims of whatever group you have melded with and you become an automaton that thinks and acts for ends that are not necessarily desirable.

Obviously a sporting event or Oktoberfest are fairly benign forms of this psychological desire to give up individuality but the picture gets much darker and scarier when we consider how often political parties use the human yearning for group solidarity in order to advance their own dubious agendas, or when mobs form and members commit reprehensible acts against other human beings because in that moment they don’t feel personally responsible for their actions.

Related posts:

  1. Build A Community Around Yourself The irony is that the more individualistic a culture becomes the more its members need community. In existential thought we often focus on the individual with concepts like self-actualization, personal freedom and personal responsibility. We glorify individuation as the most noble of enterprises. But what we easily lose sight of is the existential reality that […]...
  2. Dependence Independence In romantic relationships we walk a tightrope between giving up too much of our existential freedom and not giving up enough. If you fall too far on either side the relationship will probably suffer. How do you maintain a separate sense of Self while at the same time authentically connecting with your partner? The tendencies […]...
  3. Conflict There is a stage in the development of groups commonly called ‘storming’ where the veneer of friendliness and getting along is replaced with conflict. The groups that don’t deal well with this stage either regress back to superficial, unauthentic encounters or disintegrate. What we can take from the idea of storming as a stage in […]...
  4. Conformity Conformity is the evil twin of community. Both are attempts to bridge the chasm of existential isolation, attempts to mitigate the deep sense of loneliness that is our birthright as thinking, feeling beings poignantly aware of ourselves as separate individuals, individuals whose thoughts and feelings can only ever be partially communicated, never fully shared. We […]...
  5. The Meaning Of Conflict Most of us operate under the basic assumption that when people offer up their viewpoints they’re seeking our agreement. That’s because when most of us offer up our own viewpoints that’s exactly what we’re doing, we’re seeking agreement. Dissension can be negatively reinforcing. At the unspoken existential level agreement from our fellows equals validation and […]...
  6. Group Membership Have you ever noticed how some people, when surrounded by a posse of friends, are loud, confident, and exuberant but when you get these same people on their own they clam up, becoming cautious and even shy? This phenomenon is so widespread and common that it’s the rule not the exception. What is going on […]...
  7. Group Development I spent a few days partaking in various activities leading up to a wedding this weekend where many people came together who did not know each other very well. I got to observe some of the psychological characteristics of group development. When a new group forms there is usually a predictable pattern that can be […]...
  8. Walls Are Closing In “In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.” – Erich Fromm Being in a romantic relationship is walking a tightrope between dependence and independence, between togetherness and separateness, between becoming a community and remaining individuals. If you feel like the walls are closing in, that your freedom is being […]...
  9. Running Away From Commitment The most visible aspect of running away from commitment occurs in the context of romantic relationships but when we dig a little deeper we see that it’s a global orientation that affects all facets of life, meant to maintain the integrity of Self through securing perceived freedom for Self. We say perceived freedom because from […]...
  10. Positive Freedom If you listen to most people discuss freedom it quickly becomes obvious that they conceptualize it in its negative sense, meaning the absence of restraints. They talk about the people and structures responsible for limiting freedom, about cutting ties, about breaking free from the bonds of oppression, about doing whatever they want to do without […]...
  11. Gaining Power From The Group Losing Power Because Of The Group Although it’s not usually consciously conceptualized as such, the psychological reason to identify with any group, be it a clique, team, religion, nation, or any other entity, is to augment power. By yourself you’re small, insignificant, exposed, but by being part of a larger entity you expand the boundaries of that small Self, feeding off […]...
  12. Approaching Relationship Conflict In A Healthier Way In any intimate long-term relationship conflict is unavoidable. We’ve written this before but it’s fundamentally important to understand that a lack of any manifest conflict is rarely a sign that the relationship is healthy but rather that it’s unhealthy, that one or both partners feel inhibited in getting individual wants and needs met.  Conflict very […]...
  13. Life Problems And Feelings Of Isolation When people are forced to confront unique life problems they of course have to deal with the painful, unwanted concrete circumstances themselves. But there is always hidden, secondary fallout from the primary problem in the form of feelings of isolation, which only add to the psychological and emotional distress. When life is going well it’s […]...
  14. Responsibility When most of us think of the word ‘responsible’ what we are really thinking of is ‘culpable’. “Who’s responsible for this?” When something goes wrong the natural inclination is to assign blame to whoever the offending party is and then hopefully feel that justice has been served. But responsible actually comes from the Latin root […]...
  15. Destructiveness And Groups “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” – Alfred Pennyworth We can simplify the discussion around destructiveness and groups down to the idea that any group of which you have ever been or will ever be a part is at bottom either productive or destructive, it seeks to either further the cause of […]...
  16. Speak The Same Language Counselors learn that a good way to form a trusting relationship with clients is to adopt a similar vocabulary, using words and expressions that they hear during sessions. For one thing, people feel confident that they have been understood when they notice someone else using the same words they use to express their ideas. The […]...
  17. Robot Rights For the sake of this philosophical discussion let’s imagine that robots have become self-conscious, intelligent beings and are programmed with the three laws created by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must […]...
  18. Do Not Fear Conflict And Struggle Most of the worthwhile art and literature is produced out of conflict, it’s the creative expression of and the psychological solution to struggle. We all want life to be smooth sailing but not much of import comes out of smooth sailing. We either actively commit to our growth and self-actualization, in which case conflict and […]...
  19. Dehumanization When we hear about monstrous acts, about atrocities like genocide, we’re apt to paint the perpetrators as monsters, as less than human. The psychological reality is more complex because the perpetrators rationalize their monstrous acts through this very same process of dehumanization, painting their victims as less than human, calling them ‘cockroaches’, ‘rats’ , fully […]...
  20. Changing Conflict Mentality I watched a comedy special last night by Bill Burr, and it was hilarious but also a reminder  of how the majority of us view conflict situations in our romantic relationships. Most of Burr’s jokes revolved around the power struggle; he said that when women are winning an argument they will stay on point but […]...
Related Items