Last Word

from October/November 2022 Sand & Pine

Moolah

Mob Mentality

From one dog all the dogs bark. - Marty Rubin

In the 1950s, researchers performed an experiment where they put a single participant in a room with seven collaborators. The group was shown four lines and they were asked to determine which two lines were the same length. Two of the lines were clearly identical but the seven people that were accomplices to the experiment were instructed to purposefully give the wrong answer. The participant answered last. Thirty-three percent of the participants answered wrong, conforming to the group.

When the participants were asked why they chose the wrong answer, a majority said it was because they wanted to fit in and believed the rest of the group was seeing something they weren’t.

The history of mob mentality—aka herd mentality, hive mentality or groupthink—dates back centuries. Evidence of it is in the Bible and there are innumerable historical examples of a mob taking over individual thought— think Salem Witch Trials, the French Revolution and the Holocaust.

Mob mentality, however, is not only associated with negative, violent actions. If you’ve ever been in a sports stadium or attended a concert, you’ve probably participated in mob behavior simply by cheering for your team or dancing to music. Even ordering the same drink as your friends when out at a bar is a light form of mob mentality.

Psychology Today defines mob mentality as when like-minded people in a group reinforce one another’s viewpoints, thus strengthening the opinions of each person in the group. Basically, the group feeds off itself, making the participants more and more confident in their ideas. This, of course, can lead to events like January 6, where people would not think of attacking the Capitol as individuals but, as part of a like-minded group, those same people were climbing through shattered windows screaming “Hang Mike Pence.”

The power of a mob is undeniable, magnetizing an individual’s moral compass and scrubbing all reason. Indeed, scientists call it Contagion Theory, where collective behavior is irrational and results from the contagious influence of the crowds in which individuals find themselves.

The difficulty in stopping this groupthink is that much of the mob’s energy derives from human emotion— succinctly described in the expression “caught up in the moment.” We are, after all, human and the basic desire for belonging or being part of something bigger can often take hold of one’s senses.

To avoid a Lord of the Flies future, experts offer several tips for avoiding mob mentality, including taking a conscious step back before making a decision and understanding the ways that stress affects your decision making. But the main suggestion is to always make informed decisions. Don’t rely on one source of information. Don’t rely on the loudest voice in the group. Just because an idea is repeated again and again doesn’t make it true. Unfortunately, looking at all sides of the issue and forming your own opinion takes effort and bravery. The fate of Piggy and Simon come to mind. SP