Psychology of Mob Mentality PDF

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Lecture on mob mentality related to political elections too...

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The Psychology of Mob Mentality Mob mentality: described a behavior in which people act the same way or adopt similar behaviors as the people around them - often ignoring their own feelings in the process. Think of a sheep blindly following the flock no matter where they go just because that's what the herd is doing -Don’t stand up afraid to hurt feelings or stand out, throw away individual feelings Key element is acceptance: the decisions the group accept -Groupthink: occurs when a crowd of people (usually with good intentions) conform in such a way that leads to dysfunctional or irrational behavior - Their viewpoints may be so strong that critical thinking becomes impairing to the function of this group - A phenomenon when a group of people get together and think collectively as one mind. The group is more concerned with maintaining unity than objectively evaluating their situation, alternatives and options -can cause disasters to business or governments -Example of groupthink: Bay of Pigs invasion, pearl harbor, challenger space shuttle -the group tends to take irrational actions to rationalize thinking -Directive leadership: group leader directs the group and its discussions Ex management  Group homogeneity o Group knows each other, comes from same social background, same ideology  Ex political affiliation / culture  Group isolation: where the group does not have exposure outside info which could be used to help reach a more balanced decision  Ex country Symptoms of groupthink 1. Illusions of invulnerability: no one speaks out bc they feel everyones already in agreement, group believes its own hype and always feels like they make the right decision, can do no wrong 2. Rationalization of Warnings: victims of this behavior ignore and discount warnings and negative feedback that may cause the group to reconsider their previous assumptions; assume they have done all the research themselves so no one can have other opinions 3. Peer pressure: when a team member expresses an opposing opinion or questions the rationale behind a decision, the rest of the team members work together to pressure or penalize that person into compliance 4. Complacency: after a few successes, the group begins to feel like any decisions they make is the right one because there is no disagreement from any source 5. Moral high ground: each member of the group views themselves as moral. The combination of moral minds is therefore thought not to be likely ro make a poor or immoral decision. When morality is used as a basis for decision-making, the pressure to conform is even greater because no individual wants to be perceived as immoral 6. Stereotyping: as the group becomes more uniform in their views, they begin to see outsiders as possessing a different and inferior set of morals, characteristics from themselves. These perceived negative characteristics are then used to discredit the opposition Put stereotypes onto outgroups, think ingroup is perfect 7. Censorship: members censor their opinions in order to conform. Happens formally and informally (friendships) Groupthink: global warming

The speed at which the belief that human co2 emissions were causing the world dangerously to warm came to be proclaimed as being shared by a consensus of the world’s climate scientists  The nature and reliability of mich of the evidence being cited to support that belief  The failure of global temperatures to rise in accordance with the predictions of the computer models on which the consensus ultimately rested  Supporters of the consensus to vilify anyone daring to disagree with them just climate deniers who were anti-science  West might be planning to reduce their carbon emissions, the rest of the world, led by china and india, are planning by 2030 to build enough fossil-fuel power stations to increase global emissions by almost 50%, china was intending to double emissions, india to triple theirs Conformity: the need to confirm, individualism is not prioritized, A person changes his or her behavior or attitude to make it more socially accepted by the group Normative social influence - want to fit in Informational social influence - believes the group knows more than I do Conformity in a crowd: people in a crowd tend to take cues from others and act accordingly Deindividuation- stanford prison experiment & the power of the role Johnson & Downing (1979) experiment female experiment 1. Kkk outfit w/ masks, face covered 2. Nurse 3. Normal clothes Participants in KKK gave much higher levels of shocks to confederate than the other groups, demonstrating that when individuals are disguised eve if they aren't part of a group will act different, more aggressively - Diener experiment : anon children vs in group stealing children. Anon stole more 57% vs 21% in group - Malmouth & Check - would you rape if you could not be caught? 35% of students said yes - Mob mentality in simple terms: people behave different when in groups - Gustave Le Bon: father of crowd psychology - Anonymity, contagion, & suggestibility Ex) Black friday - follow the leader; investig - invest in certain stocks; social groups gravitate to larger and more popular groups; cult - individual beliefs become community beliefs - Herd mentality politics/choices: confirmation bias ( we like what we believe & don't believe what we don't like) & Bandwagon effect (Jump on what everyone else is doing) - Echo chamber: when you keep hearing the same message from multiple people, are they thinking on their own? Or constantly saying the same thing - Mob mentality internet media: primary cause of polarization - You don't see what people who think differently see, not even knowing exist - an element of prejudice reinforcement on some social media -lack of trusts Defunding the police: Reimagine a new force ...