The psychology of the masses, or, as it is also called, the psychology of the crowd, considers the features of the thinking and behavior of a large group of people, who share a common sense and feelings. Among the creators of the psychology of the masses - Sigmund Freud and other famous thinkers, and interest in this topic has existed for a long time.
Theory of the psychology of the masses
To begin with it is necessary to understand definitions. Psychological crowd - it's not just people who gathered in one place, but only those people who have a kind of psychic community. Unlike an individual who exists consciously, the crowd acts unconsciously. This is due to the fact that consciousness is individual, and the unconscious is collective.
Whatever the crowd, it will always be conservative, for them the past is always more significant than the present. In this case, no mass can not do without a leader, which captures a certain hypnotic authority, and not logical arguments.
There are several types of crowd. For example, a heterogeneous crowd can be anonymous (people on the street, for example) or non-anonymous (parliamentary assemblies). A homogeneous crowd is represented in three categories: sects (religious or political), castes (clergy, workers, pensioners, military), classes (middle class, bourgeoisie, etc.)
In order to be able to control the masses, politics must always have a firm ground in the form of a national idea, religion, etc. Taken alone, people are reasonable; but in the crowd, during a political rally or even with friends, a person is capable of a variety of extravagances.
Psychology of Mass Administration
Today, many scientists talk about turning the crowd into the public. The crowd must be gathered in one place, and the public can be scattered. Mass communication allows you to turn every person into a member of the masses through television, newspapers, radio and the Internet . The following methods of crowd control are used:
- Appeal to people as to children . Note: most of the performances that are intended for the public are broad, constructed using phrases and intonations that are used when talking with the child. Due to the suggestibility of a person, the reaction will be without critical evaluation, which is typical for children under the age of 12 years.
- Distractions . The media actively cover some problems, keeping silent about others, much more significant. Instead of talking about the most important problems of modern psychology, economics, cybernetics or the discoveries of science, air time illuminates the events of show business, sports, broadcasts senseless series.
- Method of gradual application . Gradually, you can introduce anything - if the media immediately posted information on mass unemployment, instability and uncertainty of the population, there might be a riot, but filed gradually, these data cause a more calm reaction.
- Create problems and offer solutions . In this case, an artificially created situation, which causes a certain reaction of citizens,
so that the population itself insists on the steps that the government already needs, but in other circumstances might not receive support. Example: terrorist attacks, after which people themselves insist on strengthening security measures, despite the fact that they infringe upon the rights and freedom of citizens. - Keep people in ignorance . Efforts of the authorities are directed also on that people did not understand, how they operate. To do this, the level of education is lowered, show business is offered as a "culture", etc.
The psychology of the masses says that it is much easier to manage the crowd than one person. It is important to see exactly what management is all about.