In social psychology, the study of group dynamics began with the concept of ethnocentrism. Based on this, these dynamics were analyzed in terms of conflict and competition. Psychologist Gustave Le Bon was a famous figure in this regard.

Negative protagonists

An early European contribution to the development of a psychological-social point of view can be found in the work of Gustave Le Bon , who, with his book “ The Psychology of Crowds ” (1895), sparked a series of philosophical-sociological discussions that were analysed by Freud and misunderstood, admired and used for propaganda purposes by Hitler and Mussolini. This admiration stems from the authoritarian and anti-democratic ideology that Le Bon's psychosocial analysis seemed to advocate. For Le Bon, crowds (understood as mass movements fighting for civil rights) were negative protagonists of society : they instilled fear in institutions but also in the most peaceful crowds, since they created a new subjectivity, an awareness of the self that undermined the principle of authority that had always governed the world.

A latent danger

For Le Bon, men are separated by irreducible differences depending on their race (superior or inferior), and cannot be modified by institutions and education. These inequalities can only be controlled, so that inferiors do not cause too much harm. The poor, but also all other men, are not to blame for being ignorant, but must be kept in check, since in all men there is a latent passion that can be unleashed at any moment. Crowds have an impulsive nature , which therefore prevents them from completely subjecting themselves to the laws of the state. They are incapable of having their own opinion, but only a "reflected" one of anyone. They allow themselves to be deduced by those who manage to penetrate their minds.

Low intelligence

According to the author, therefore, human behavior is driven by largely shared unconscious motives , and this would lead to the elimination of any form of individual intelligence within the group. Crowds are not sensitive to logical demonstration but to impression : knowing the art of capturing the imagination of crowds means knowing the art of controlling them. There are mechanisms underlying these characteristics, and they are:

  • il sense of power, which comes to men when, by gathering together, their sense of responsibility and their concrete relationship with reality weaken;
  • il mental contagion, which by propagating actions and feelings, pushes one to become confused with the collective soul;
  • la suggestibility, which, set in motion by the weakening of consciousness, abolishes personal will, transforming the individual into a kind of automaton.

A question of personality

These crowds are dominated by the personalities of their leaders : men of action, often neurotic but endowed with a strong will, masters of the short statement, repetition, and contagion that will ensure the spread of opinion. The historical events on which these conceptions were based pushed a segment of social psychology to seek to explain how such tragic events could have been possible, also in order to identify possible prevention strategies , dedicating itself to the study of the variables that come into play in conflicts between groups.

Francesco D'Ambrosio

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