Citation

Martin ED. J. Abnorm. Psychol. Soc. Psychology 1923; 18(3): 187-203.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1923, R.G. Badger)

DOI

10.1037/h0069350

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Social psychology may profitably adapt to its own uses the knowledge of abnormal behavior possessed by the psychopathologist. There is much group behavior which shows a lack of adjustment to social situations very similar to that of certain neuroses. Without entering upon the discussion of the question of the therapeutic value of the Freudian method of psychoanalysis, it is safe to say that we are greatly indebted to Freud for such knowledge as we possess concerning the determinants of many well recognized types of individual maladjustment to environment. The same unconscious mechanisms which cause the unadjusted individual to be out of harmony with his fellows may on occasion lead a group of men to forms of behavior which are in the true sense anti-social. The term "anti-social" is somewhat ambiguous. In one sense any reaction to the human beings in one's environment is social behavior, and anti-social behavior is that in which human fellowship plays no part, being present neither in the stimulus nor as a factor which modifies the mode of response. If we exclude certain very simple reflexes, it is doubtful if there is antisocial behavior in this sense. Psychopathology finds in such behavior a criterion by which the normal may be distinguished from the abnormal. Now unless we are content to regard any sort of social relationship as a norm, it would seem that we are justified in applying to groups of men the same criteria that are used to determine whether an individual is adjusted or unadjusted. Strikes are condemned because the behavior of those who participate in them frequently shows no "concern for the public". Evolutionary groups are said to be "intoxicated". Men with common sense have long regarded such phenomena as these as epidemic mental affections. Thus, I think, we may fairly say that there is a generally recognized distinction between that social behavior which results in satisfactory adjustment and that which fails in this respect. Not every group is a crowd, in the psychological sense of the term. When a group becomes a crowd, according to Le Bon, there is a stripping off of the layer of conscious personality along with all higher mental faculties. Hence the individual in the crowd descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization. Le Bon, fanciful as his explanation may have been, was on the right track. He saw that the behavior of crowds is a special phenomenon of social psychology; that the thought and behavior of people in a crowd is different from that which we find in their ordinary social relationships. On this point Le Bon's thinking was essentially empirical. The facts of behavior justify such a distinction and without it, it is difficult to see how a social psychology can be very significant. I give as an illustration an episode in the political history of New York City. There are three characteristics of the crowd mind, which so far as I can discover, are uniformly present. The three characteristics of crowd behavior which are so symptomatic that they may be used empirically to distinguish the crowd from normal forms of social behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)