Herd instinct psychology. Herd feeling

Bylinina Alena

1. Introduction

All animals in nature are characterized by a herd lifestyle. A herd is a hierarchical system in which each individual has its own role. Sometimes (usually when applied to predators) it is called not a herd, but a flock, but the essence of the herd does not change because it was called differently.

Man also has an instinct for herd hierarchy. In fact, the human herd differs from the herd of animals only in what qualities determine the rank of an individual in the herd. Unlike animals, physical strength plays a much smaller role in humans; much more important is the size of the wallet, belonging to one or another social class, etc. But only external signs herd rank. The mechanism of action of the herd instinct in humans is practically no different from that in animals.

Purpose of the study:

Find out why people like to blend in with the crowd. Is it easy for a person to succumb to the herd instinct? How to get rid of this quality.

1. Consider the theory of this issue.

2. Find out with the help of literature about people who, afraid to stand out from the crowd, committed offenses.

3. Conduct a survey among teenagers on the topic: “Is it easy for you to blend in with the crowd?” Draw conclusions.

Download:

Preview:

VIII regional festival-competition

research works and creative projects of students in the field of social sciences, humanities, art and culture

"Your path to discovery"

"The herd instinct.

Why do people follow other people's lead?

http://zoonovosti.by/board/post23460.html

In addition to the instincts listed in the book “”, let’s consider another, so-called “herd instinct”. We will understand by it inexplicable human desire(herd animal too) join your herd.

In fact, we explained in the book “” that this desire stems only from, since it is in the herd that it is most reliable for an individual to preserve his gene. And the herd instinct does not bring anything fundamentally new to us.

However, the other day I came across the following definition of the herd instinct on Wikipedia:

Herd instinct is a mechanism underlying the instinct of self-preservation, applicable equally to both people and animals.

The herd instinct shows how people or animals in a group can act collectively, without centralized leadership. As V. Trotter noted in his work “The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War,” it is pointless to look for the causes and derivatives of the herd instinct, since it is primary and cannot be resolved.

I realized that we should examine this issue in more detail.

First of all, relying only on , we will show our complete disagreement with all provisions of this definition.

• Firstly, as shown in, there is no independent instinct of self-preservation. There is only a corollary of the same name from the Law (or Instinct) of Gene Preservation.

• Secondly, it is NOT pointless to look for the causes and derivatives of the herd instinct, since it is precisely NOT primary.

Let us recall along the way how primary and secondary statements (or instincts) differ. If statement A follows from statement B, but statement A does not follow from statement B, then statement A will be called primary, and statement B secondary or a consequence of A.

If the herd instinct were primary, then how could we explain the regular disintegration of the herd? Especially the constant expulsion from the herd of young males who have reached reproductive age or, conversely, of elderly males?

And they are explained very simply, through

• Young, grown-up males begin to pose a threat to the genetic purity of the offspring of a harem of a dominant, but not yet old and strong male.

• Expelled young males leave the herd and begin to look for the opportunity to form their own herd, not out of herd instinct, but with the sole purpose of preserving their gene.

“Why do they expel old males?” - you ask. Yes, for almost the same reason.

• Usually this is an aged dominant male who lost a tournament fight for his harem to a new young male contender, but has not yet lost his reproductive power and therefore needs to be constantly monitored. In addition, the old male very soon turns into a burden and an extra mouth, unable to independently obtain food for himself. The end of such old lonely males is always sad.

As we see, no herd instinct works and everything comes down to !

And now the harmful reader should ask: “Why then don’t they expel elderly females who are not capable of procreation?” The answer is again simple.

• Elderly females, as a rule, are excellent nannies and are often simply necessary for the care and education of the offspring of the dominant male, i.e. the reason is always the same: !

Nevertheless, we will continue to use the term Herd Instinct, remembering, however, that it is a simple consequence.

The situation described above can be observed especially well in a pride of lions or a herd of elephants. This unenviable final fate of male lions and elephants after completing the program is no exception.

In other species it can be even sadder: in bees, drones die immediately after copulation; in grasshoppers and spiders, males are immediately eaten by females after copulation. This list, sad in relation to males, can be continued for a very long time, and it pushes to even more gloomy thoughts.

Now I am tormented by vague doubts that in the distant historical past they treated our brother “the peasant” in the same way or almost the same way.

You ask: Reasons? I explain: Humanity lived for 3-4 million years, practically no different from the animal world around it, driven only by the same thing. Scientists find traces of human cannibalism in all parts of the world until very recently. The same is true of human sacrifice.

The beginnings of humanistic morality appeared, one might say, yesterday by historical standards, and there is no serious reason to believe that in ancient times males in the human herd were treated better than males in the rest of the animal world.

Now we will begin to study the herd instinct in the most interesting herd - human society. In the most interesting way, because a person has another important option that does not exist in the animal world. This !

The herd instinct resides in man just as in any other herd animal, and the overwhelming majority of people follow it. Is this good or evil? We will try to give here, as exhaustively as possible, an answer to this question.

The list of these people in the entire history of mankind, in all types of its activities, is extremely small. Several thousand. No more. In any case, a small percentage of the entire population.

Once, when I was young, I asked a friend: “If the entire civilization was created by this small percentage, then why did God create everyone else?” The answer was wonderful: “In order to give birth to this small fraction of a percent!”

And in general, it is impossible to imagine a society consisting entirely of geniuses, completely free from the herd instinct! It would fall apart instantly!

The other day I was listening to a television conversation-interview two the smartest people, Dmitry Gordon and Viktor Shenderovich. They also talked about the herd instinct and came to the conclusion that it, this instinct, is always evil, leading correct examples the destructive effect of this instinct in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and that everything right and good is done by single people without this instinct.

With all due respect to these interlocutors, I cannot agree with both of these statements.

• Firstly, what is wrong with the herd instinct when it raises a person, along with all his people, to defend the Motherland, to the Revolution?

• Secondly, people like Stalin and Hitler were also absolutely free from the herd instinct. But at the same time, these people who hated, skillfully manipulating the herd instinct of the crowd, led their peoples in the twentieth century to the most terrible catastrophes in the history of mankind.

Note that in all totalitarian societies, such as fascism or communism, following your “herd” or, in other words, nurturing the herd instinct becomes state policy, and any deviation from it is severely punished. Those who lived under the communists or the Nazis remember this very well.

The attitude towards the herd instinct in society, especially among the intelligentsia, is quite arrogant and contemptuous. If you open Google on this topic, you will immediately see a bunch of articles about how to get rid of the herd instinct. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of society, blindly and strictly obeying this instinct, is embarrassed to admit it.

The book “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” written by Richard Bach in 1970, once served as the anthem for everyone who considers themselves free from the herd instinct.

Now let’s think about whether we should always be ashamed of the herd instinct? Why do we, without thinking, run after the crowd in case of danger?

I am reminded of television images of the tsunami flooding in Thailand in 2004, when crowds of people began to scatter randomly in different directions. Only those who competently began to climb the hills or ran up the stairs of multi-story strong hotels, as well as those who ran after them, following the herd instinct, survived.

At the end of their conversation, Gordon and Shenderovich came to the same conclusion that when you see a huge crowd running somewhere, immediately run to the side. As we can see from the examples above, this advice is generally incorrect.

You need to know why the crowd is running, what slogans they have, whether they are encroaching on anyone’s rights to or?

In the textbook examples of communism and Nazism, their slogans quite openly called for the destruction of these rights from the nobles, the rich, the bourgeoisie in the first case, and from Jews and other non-Aryan races in the second.

The very Principle of Democracy, when the minority is obliged to obey the majority, is the very Herd Instinct! Who and when proved that the majority was right? Nobody ever! This cannot be explained by anything other than the herd instinct.

But, as the above examples show, Democracy does not always guarantee right choice decisions, which happened in Germany in 1933.

The Democracy's most recent misstep was Brexit, where its supporters won by less than 2%. A mistake, because Brexit does not increase Freedom of Choice in anything, on the contrary, overall reducing its level in Britain. This will become obvious to everyone within a few years of his implementation of Brexit, unless it is completely canceled by a second referendum. The most “advanced” British people foresee this today.

However, by democratically accepting the power of the majority, we expect that its decision will most often be correct, and history confirms this. Moreover, if Democracy made a mistake, but the mechanisms of Freedom of Choice (democratic institutions) were preserved, then this mistake can be corrected fairly quickly.

No, to hell with special historical paths and national characteristics No! There is simply a lead and a lag. And it's easy to prove!

If, for example, there are two states A and B with different forms of government, ways of life, and after some time the form of government in state B and the way of life become the same as in A, then this means only one thing: state B is evolutionarily behind in development from state A.

We know of many examples of countries where women who traditionally wore the hijab are beginning to take them off at the risk of losing personal freedom (Iran), and we do not know of any examples of a single country where the reverse process is taking place.

This, of course, does not take into account the case when Islamists recently came to power in Egypt for a short time and forcibly put hijabs on women. It was pure short-term fluctuation.

And one more interesting thought: countries where permanent presidents who have come to power try to prolong their power by hook or by crook, forgery and fraud, resemble animal herds or packs of animals, also ruled by permanent leaders, dominant males until their weakened ones are overthrown males are younger and stronger. From here, draw a conclusion which society is closer to its primitive bestial historical beginning.

Well, now, let’s formulate the promised answer to the question posed in the title: Is herd instinct good or evil? Should we follow the herd instinct?

From all that has been said above, it follows that there is no deterministic answer to this question! There is only a probabilistic answer. It is best to always think with your own head.

But if you don’t have your own decision, then it’s best to join the group where you most see recognized authoritative and smart people.

Well, if you have to choose a solution at random, then join the largest group, in the hope that there will be smart, experienced people there.

None of these tips will give you a 100% guarantee. Only probability!

Generally speaking, our the world around us fundamentally not deterministic. It is probabilistic and there are more questions with probabilistic answers than questions with deterministic answers. Physicists were the first to understand this at the beginning of the last century, when they delved into the microworld.

In conclusion, I will give an example from news feed recent outbreaks of measles in civilized countries such as France.

The fact is that these outbreaks were the result of some parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Some for orthodox religious reasons, others, having read that vaccination has side effects. Both refer to personal freedom of choice in what concerns their children.

However, if the probability side effect- these are units in thousands, then the probability of becoming infected healthy child in close contact with the patient, almost one hundred percent. Moreover, with modern movements of people, it is almost impossible to ensure absolutely reliable quarantine.

So then choose the probability you prefer. In this regard, discussions are being raised in France about forced restrictions on personal information when there is a threat to society, i.e. the rest.

I remember that in the Soviet Union they vaccinated all children without asking either them or their parents. I would not object to such forced vaccination.

Karmak Bagisbaev, professor of mathematics, author of the book

This is Australia, there really are poles and wires (probably even live).

In general, the concept of herd instinct is familiar in different shapes to everyone, however, it is more commonly associated with the animal world, although it is also applicable to humans, but to a slightly different extent. Let's analyze its mechanism.

First, a short digression “to the children.” There is an obvious rule for all parents: do not do anything yourself in front of your child that you do not want him to do. Want to reduce the likelihood of your child becoming a smoker? Don't smoke in front of him and don't give him the opportunity to understand that you smoke. The principle is simple: if a person (child) does not know what is right and what is wrong, he learns by copying/imitating those whose behavior is correct for him. If there is no way to filter out “right/wrong” behavior, then a person simply directly copies anyone who is physically similar to him (“mirror”). A person (child) carries out such copying only in cases where he does not have any behavioral strategies, there are no predictions for a specific situation, or any of his predictions seem to him too unlikely, and therefore threatening to survival. Simply put: when you don’t know what to do, do as everyone else who is like you does.

This is precisely what underlies the “herd instinct” of man. It is worth clarifying, of course, that this is not an instinct, it is only a mechanism of self-survival through learning by copying, which is based on the instinct of self-preservation.

For example:
A man works in an office. Every day at lunchtime, along with the flow of people, he goes to the dining room, turning left in the corridor, while almost no one ever turned right. One day, also leaving the office, he walks with a stream of people, but people start turning right.
There is a violation of the prediction. A person has no strategies for such behavior and the natural reaction for learning how to react is to copy the behavior of other people, trust them, go to the right.

The likelihood that a person will obey the “herd instinct” is determined by a number of factors:

1. Speed ​​of decision making
As already mentioned, consciousness functions much slower than the subconscious. In cases where we are forced to make quick decisions, we tend to use the subconscious and the mechanism of learning by copying/imitation falls precisely into its area. Consequently, in the case of quick decisions, we are more susceptible to making choices based on the copying/imitation principle.

For example:
If we see that in a few seconds the walls will begin to collapse around us and we see a crowd running in some direction, then we would rather run after them than think “where to run.”

2. The criticality of making decisions for self-survival
This point closely intersects with the example of the previous paragraph. If we are faced with a situation where decision-making is strongly tied to our self-survival (“pure strategy” or “jamb”) and we do not have behavioral strategies for this situation, we tend to copy the behavior of other people more, since we subconsciously assume that they They don’t want their own death.

3. Level of development of prediction strategies
As already mentioned, the “herd instinct” is most pronounced in cases of weak development of consciousness and, in particular, prediction models. The less we can predict about a given situation, the less we can simulate possible outcomes and evaluate them, the more susceptible we are to the herd instinct. Very often this works for the better for us, but sometimes it also harms us. There is a saying: “Millions of people cannot be wrong.” From my experience, I can say that they can, and do this regularly (although the concept of “error” is always subjective).

4. Level of identification with mass
Very important role plays an assessment of how strongly the “mirror effect” influences a person at the moment of making a decision.

Examples:
If a flock of gophers runs past a person in a panic, he will not panic and will not run after them.
If a person in a business suit sees two crowds running in different directions (one crowd is people in suits, and the other in orange “overalls”), then he is more likely to run after the people in suits.
If the person in the example about the office leaves not to go to the cafeteria (where, in his opinion, everyone goes), but, say, to throw out the trash (where the trash container is to the left), then again the likelihood of his subordination to the herd instinct is much less due to the reduced influence “ mirrors."

5. Internal state
It is obvious that a person’s internal state also affects the degree of involvement, since it also determines the degree of submission to subconscious influence. For example, alcohol intoxication reduces conscious control and such a person follows the crowd more easily. This includes all methods of changing consciousness control, from trance to medication.

6. Individual characteristics
In some cases there are individual characteristics submission to the “herd instinct”, for example when, as a result of a joint, a person becomes dependent on the opinions and actions of other people. It can also be attempts at self-realization through joining the masses, which occurs in the early stages of personality development (adolescence). There are quite a lot of such examples, but the general mechanisms are contained in the first five points.

Conclusions
In general, the “herd instinct” is a fairly good and effective biological tool in the field of pure self-preservation strategies. However, it loses its effectiveness, and sometimes even plays to the detriment of the person himself, when it comes to systems of complex social interaction, especially in a society with a high prevalence of jambs.

When making decisions about the lack of behavioral strategies (prediction models), take into account the fact that a widely accepted behavioral model may be inadequate and ineffective. If you have time to make a decision, then use it as resource efficient as possible and try to develop your own strategy.

If we're talking about about how to wash clothes, then you can easily rely, without much harm to yourself, on the opinion of society. If we are talking about more individual things, in particular your personality or social aspects your life, then the decision should be made more carefully and separately. It is precisely due to the fact that individual people delegate the making of personal mental decisions to the opinion of the “herd” that the opportunity has been created for the development of sects and other similar organizations and trends, which are almost always distinguished by an abundance of irrational strategies. ()

Something else for you from psychology: for example, and here for example. Here is another answer to the question and. Let me also remind you about The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -

In 1909, the second and final part of his work, “The Herd Instinct and Its Influence on the Psychology of Civilized Man,” was published in the journal Sociological Review. Trotter discussed his concept of human social herd in more detail in the book “The Herd Instincts in War and Peace,” which he wrote in 1916 at the height of the First World War.

In the book, Trotter believed that looking for the causes and derivatives of the herd instinct is pointless, since it is primary and insoluble. He considered the instincts of self-preservation, nutrition, sexual and gregarious instincts to be the primary, basic instincts. The first three, according to Trotter, are primitive and are accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction in case of successful implementation. The herd instinct, as Trotter writes, gives rise to “an obvious obligation to act on the contrary”: a person is ready not to care about self-preservation, to experience a lack of food and to show resistance to carnal impulses, submitting to a different imperative. Simply put, in a crowd, a person obeys an instinct that may be contrary to his personal benefit.

Wolves, sheep and bees

In his book, Trotter tried to explain from a psychological point of view the irrational behavior of the masses, which led to the enormous massacre on the battlefields of the World War. To do this, he put forward “a psychological hypothesis to explain the peculiarities of the German national character that are manifesting themselves at the present time.” According to Trotter, the herd instinct manifests itself in three various types: aggressive, protective and socialized, exemplified in nature by the wolf, sheep and bee, respectively.

“In studying the English mind in the spirit of a biological psychologist, it is necessary to keep in mind the society of the bee, just as in studying the German mind it was necessary to keep in mind the society of the wolf,” writes Trotter. In his opinion, the herd instinct in the British “socialized herd” has gone the way of the beehive, where each individual contributes to the common survival. In Germany it is expressed in an aggressive form, represented in nature by a pack of wolves and a flock of sheep.

His book "The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War" is available at English on the Internet, anyone can read it, there are many more interesting things in the same spirit. But something else is more interesting: how quickly, while still a newborn, the new science of social psychology found application in politics and ideology, displacing social Darwinism with its crude and straightforward postulate about the survival of the fittest.

Reproduction of instincts

Instincts in the science of human psychology appeared in the 18th century in the works of French encyclopedists and were borrowed by them from biology. At the beginning of the 19th century, Lamarck finally formulated the concept of instinct in animals “as an inclination caused by sensations based on the needs that arose due to their needs and forcing them to perform actions without any participation of thought, without any participation of the will.”

At first, transferring to a person actions performed without any participation of thought and will required a certain amount of courage from the scientist. But after Darwin the situation became reversed. The great Darwin himself wrote that instincts appeared as a result of evolution, and who was the crown of evolution according to Darwin? This is precisely what Homo sapiens was, and it was now risky for a scientist to deny instinctive behavior in humans.

Further, if earlier instincts existed only in theory and all evidence of their reality was indirect, then Ivan Pavlov experimentally proved their existence, however, calling them “complex unconditioned reflexes.” It took half a century for scientists to again begin to doubt the existence of human actions “without any participation of thought, without any participation of will.” In the meantime, psychologists have only tried to separate inherited elements of behavior from those acquired in early childhood.

Different scientists came up with different numbers of such inherited instincts. American psychiatrist Abraham Brill believed that “everything in life can be reduced to two fundamental instincts: hunger and love; they rule the world." The British neurosurgeon Wilfrid Trotter, as we have seen, has four. His compatriot, the physiologist William McDougall, the author of the first textbook on social psychology, first had seven of them, then (as the textbook was republished) there were 11, and then 18. Other scientists had 20, 30, 40 or more.

Scientists simply selected the appropriate instinct in an animal for each type of human activity or social institution. For example, it was believed that economic relations grew out of the instinct of nutrition, the family is built on a rationalized sexual instinct, war is based on the instinct of struggle, the state is based on the instincts of herd and fear. Their review can be read in the works of St. Petersburg University professor Dmitry Gorbatov. Continuing this series, it is not difficult to select instincts for any phenomenon in life: from participation in the green movement to non-traditional orientation.

There are no instincts in the USSR

Compared to others, the herd instinct received special attention in the Russian psychological school, which in this regard even led at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A bad feeling was brewing in Russian society, and it did not deceive: in the near future the country would have to endure three wars, two revolutions and general unrest. Life itself demanded answers to the questions: how does the crowd influence the individual, and the individual influence the crowd? Is the tendency to crime obligatory for a crowd? How to avoid becoming its victim? Is it possible to control a crowd?

The populist theorist Nikolai Mikhailovsky viewed the crowd as “a pliable mass, ready to follow the hero anywhere and languidly and tensely shifting from foot to foot in anticipation of his appearance.” At the same time, the role of the “hero” was assigned to the situational leader - the one who captivates by example, the first to “break the ice”, taking one step that others involuntarily expect in order to blindly follow him. This hero is not a “great man” at all; on the contrary, he is the most ordinary “man of the crowd”, and therefore its forces, feelings, instincts, and desires are concentrated in him. The hypnotic model of communication in a crowd, developed by Mikhailovsky, turned out to be quite promising. In Western social psychology, it has been developed as a “slowly spreading psychological contagion” that precedes outbursts of collective rage.

Professor of criminal law Vladimir Sluchevsky formulated the concept of “animal principle” as an explanation of why a person is able to change in a crowd to the point of forgetting moral guidelines. “Who in his thoughts... has not committed serious crimes, or at least did not wish for the occurrence of such events, for the implementation of which he would never have decided to have a hand!” - he wrote. In a crowd, this property, for insignificant reasons, leads to extreme cruelty and destructive activity. In Western mass psychology, similar ideas were developed by the sociologist and criminologist Spicy Sigele, who considered the crowd “a substrate in which the microbe of evil develops very easily, while the microbe of good almost always dies, not finding suitable living conditions.”

Zoologist Vladimir Wagner proposed simpler and more materialistic reasons for crowd behavior. According to his theory, the physical impact of some individuals on others, expressed in touches and collisions, movements in front of the eyes, noise during movements, is transformed into nervous excitement in a person in a crowd. This excitement, in turn, thanks to the herd instinct, which involves imitation of individuals who were the first to react to a critical change in the situation, leads to unpredictable behavior of the crowd.

It is clear that in the Soviet Union such theories could not take root and develop. In 1976, Pyotr Galperin, a professor at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, wrote: “The question is whether instincts are compatible with the social organization of people’s lives, with the social nature of man, with a moral assessment of behavior and responsibility for actions. And the fact of the matter is that they are incompatible."

There were no scientists in Soviet psychological science who wanted to refute this; probably, another basic instinct was triggered for them - self-preservation.

Shepherds of the virtual flock

For more than a hundred years, the science of the herd reflex has gone through a lot. It almost ended in the 1920s and 1930s when behaviorism came into fashion, but was revived again with the advent of ethology. However, there is no need to fear that it will someday go out of fashion and be pushed to the margins of social psychology. The possibility of controlling the herd reflex for politics and trade looks very tempting.

The second area of ​​application of knowledge about the herd reflex - in the markets for goods and services - began to develop rapidly in the post-war years. True, in relation to politics and trade today, no special breakthroughs have been observed in the psychology of the herd reflex, although psychologists are trying their best. It seems that all the private mechanisms of behavior of the crowd and the person in it have already been studied, but this does not bring us any closer to understanding what is happening to them.

The maximum that political strategists and marketers can now achieve in practice is to form in the consumer a short-term conditioned reflex of salivation for this or that product or this or that election candidate, as in Pavlov’s experiments. Or, on the contrary, a reflexive rejection of the first and second, as in other experiments of the same Pavlov. The fine tuning of Trotter’s socialized herd has not yet been achieved; the human herd, not in theory, but in its carnal form, still remains for science something like the thinking jelly Solaris from Stanislaw Lem’s science fiction novel, which, in response to any attempt to study it, extracts it from the subconscious scientist phantoms and offers to study them.

More promising are studies of virtual herds that have recently appeared on the Internet. Here the success of their management is more impressive, and perhaps it is here that social psychology will find a universal algorithm for managing the herd instinct.

Sergey Petukhov

The term “herd mentality” is not scientific. This is a figurative expression. People use it to describe the behavior of others when they behave like animals in a herd. What is herd feeling? What does the 5% law say and what are the features of crowd psychology?

Crowd psychology or what is herd feeling?

Science knows the concept of “crowd psychology”. It explains what the herd feeling is and how it manifests itself, namely:

A crowd of people is more aggressive than an individual;
The crowd is easily susceptible to emotion and suggestion;
The crowd is not able to assess the situation with a “cold” mind;
The crowd does not reason or ask questions;
The crowd is malleable and easy to push mass event(riot, rally, protest, criticism, condemnation);
The crowd does not accept individuality;
The crowd acts at the direction of the leader, without thinking or weighing its own actions.

It's inexplicable, but sometimes also intellectual developed people are subject to the herd mentality. In an exaggerated way, it happens like this: once at a protest, a person chants slogans with those around him, and when left alone, he thinks and understands that his own “I” does not want to express protests, condemn and demand changes.

Or seeing a crowd of people running in an unknown direction, a person joins them, without understanding why. Subconsciously, he believes that since everyone is running, that means I should too. In this state, people are capable of finding themselves in a completely unfamiliar area, and then “biting their elbows”, wondering how to get home.

Manifestations of herd feelings are well remembered by people who found themselves in queues in the USSR. A man stood for hours for a thing that he, in general, did not need. They did this because “other people take it, so I need it too.”

Submitting to the energy of the crowd is a direct path to failure, loss of time, false aspirations and even illness. The pattern of development of the disease is simple, and older people are especially susceptible to this. Someone tells an elderly man that the main thieves sit in government bodies. Elderly man does not have the opportunity to verify this personally, and he blindly believes the speaking “well-wisher”. As a result, a person thinks about it with increasing negativity. Having succumbed to suggestion, he becomes nervous, filled with anger, and negative emotions may well lead to a heart attack.

Alcoholism is also an example of a herd mentality. Why does a devotee become a drinker when he finds himself in the company of drinkers? The reason is clear: when others drink, it is difficult to resist; the energy of the drinkers absorbs individual beliefs. They also become smokers and drug addicts “for company.”

Herd mentality and the law of five percent

In psychology there is the concept of “auto-synchronization”. It manifests itself like this: if 5% of the members of a society perform a specific action, the remaining members will also repeat it. If you spook 5% of the horses in a field, the entire herd will bolt. If 5% of pigeons fly, the whole flock will fly up.

This is also typical for human society. Scientists from England conducted an experiment. Several people were invited into a large room. Of these, 5% were instructed to move along a specific trajectory, the rest were told that they could move in any direction. As a result of the experiment, all the people in the room unconsciously moved along a given trajectory. The theory of five percent can be confirmed by everyone. After attending a concert with a group of friends, start clapping at the moment you see fit. The whole room will eventually repeat after you.

Launching auto-synchronization is possible in a team where people are not aware of their own actions and do not think about the purpose and reason. If the level of self-control is low, there is no need to tell everyone what to do - 5% of people in society will start this process.

The Law of Five Percent is actively used by marketers. Starting a rumor that soon there will be no specific type of product left on the shelves. 5% of people will believe this and rush to buy up the supposed shortage. By their own behavior they will trigger mass panic and in the next couple of days there will really be no goods left.

What are the benefits of herd mentality?

Man is a social being. Life without other people is unnatural for a person. Despite the fact that humans have evolved far from animals, we are no different from primates when it comes to collective consciousness. One of these phenomena is the herd feeling.

The everyday idea of ​​herd feeling is negative, which is also, in general, a manifestation of the herd instinct. People tend not to have their own opinions, but to completely trust the statements of an authoritative person or group of people. People generally do not require confirmation or justification. This feature is actively manipulated by the media, marketers, politicians and public figures.

Once psychologists reported that herd mentality is not good, people believed it without thinking about the evidence. People take advantage of the convenient opportunity to repeat other people's thoughts, although the manifestations of herd feelings are not clear-cut.

What are the advantages of the herd instinct? Of course, an aggressive crowd of people, when everyone around them acts as a single organism, without thinking or asking questions, is rather an extreme manifestation of the herd instinct. But there is still a positive component in the herd feeling. Let’s say that the vast majority of reasonable people will not travel along a dangerous road if they have been warned about it. The herd feeling in such cases saves lives and helps to take profitable actions.

In order not to fall into the trap of crowd energy and become a victim of herd mentality, you need to learn and remain calm in critical situations. The crowd can both save and destroy. By showing awareness and “coldness” of the mind, you can avoid many negative influences from the outside.