Some of the first serious scientific works in the field of mass psychology saw the world at the beginning of the twentieth century. The researchers who published them were Le Bon and Siegele. The sociologist and lawyer laid the foundation for further research, which has advanced far in the modern world. The laws of mass control have long been a priority area of study. Marketers, sociologists, psychologists and political scientists study them especially carefully. All of them must know and understand the mechanisms of influencing the crowd and how they can be used for their own purposes. The famous philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky compiled his list of ways to manipulate human consciousness, thanks to which he gained popularity. According to his version, all these methods are widely used in the media and in political games. To better understand how we can be influenced from the outside and direct our behavior in the direction someone needs, let's look at the ten basic laws of crowd control that Noam Chomsky formulated. How convincing is the theory of the American professor that politicians can act based on their narrow corporate interests and neglect the needs of society, whether they are an isolated ruling class - decide for yourself. The scientist's theory of how elites control crowds is certainly of some interest, but it should not be forgotten that Chomsky is not always perceived as a neutral scientist. In his homeland, he is better known as a political figure with ultra-left views. But one cannot but agree that the manipulation techniques he described are quite effective and are used to control the crowd, including politicians.
Crowd Control Techniques
The first and most important crowd control technique is distraction. Using this method, the media, collaborating with the government, diverts the population's attention to insignificant and minor problems in order to distract from something truly important and decisive. This method is very convenient, because most people have TVs, phones and computers. The information space is becoming so polluted that it is becoming almost impossible to find anything significant. Everything is littered with insignificant facts and events that, by and large, mean nothing. Of course, no one can take away our right to acquire useful knowledge, learn something about economics, politics and other areas of public life. But this is becoming more and more difficult, and in order to find the necessary and relevant information, you have to scroll through a lot of sources and spend your time on it. The media space is mostly filled with a variety of shows, entertainment programs, series that are striking in their primitiveness, and other empty programs. We are stuffed with everything that can distract us and occupy us at least for some time. Unfortunately, many of this television trash never get out, spending their entire lives watching TV and switching channels.
The second way to manipulate public consciousness is to create and solve problems. Those situations that really require intervention and a quick solution remain untouched. But so that the average person does not see this, artificial problems and demonstrative solutions are created.
Who makes up the crowd: the role of the leader
Crowd
The basis of a crowd is always the instigators who form a crowd of people. This can happen deliberately or accidentally. For example, any incident can attract a large number of onlookers; in such a situation, the instigator does not plan to gather people around. Or vice versa, one or more leaders begin to attract people's attention in various ways, for example: provocations, shows, performances. Who does the crowd consist of? What is the role of a leader?
- The crowd almost always consists of random passers-by and the base.
- In situations where the crowd is formed purposefully, the leaders can be joined by trained people who share their opinion.
- The crowd is constantly replenished with new people who increase its strength. This process cannot be controlled because curious incidents attract people.
- The role of a crowd leader is to create belief in something . This is the main reason for his great influence.
The key indicator that determines the strength of a leader's influence on the crowd is charm. This is the quality that is the dominance of a person over the mind of another person.
Crowd control from within
There is another way to approach the manipulation of human consciousness. Namely, start controlling the crowd from within. If the authorities need to limit the rights and freedoms of residents, they can arrange everything so that the population themselves asks them about it. This is done very simply. For example, it is enough to stop paying attention to crime and let it run wild for a bit. Then, for their own safety, the residents themselves will ask for the introduction of stricter laws regulating relations in society, which may also limit their freedoms.
It is very convenient to influence the consciousness of the masses by gradually introducing the necessary changes. Unpopular decisions are not made overnight, otherwise people will start to rebel and try to throw off all restrictions. In order for them to accept them, it is enough just to give people new information every day, slowly, which will present a previously unacceptable phenomenon as something completely good. This law can be illustrated by the Overton Window of Opportunity. The famous twentieth-century sociologist Joseph Overton proved that if you gradually impose a new idea on people, while observing clear rules, you can persuade society to do anything. He demonstrated this with the example of cannibalism. And although this is a very fascinating theory, we move on.
How to control a crowd?
Crowd management is a complex process. When she is organized and follows a prepared plan, she is easy to manage. In a situation of spontaneous formation of an aggressive mass, it becomes impossible to stop and contain the crowd. The study of crowd psychology has helped scientists identify factors that provide tools for crowd control:
- Demonstration of your superiority. A person lost in the crowd begins to instinctively look for a strong participant. A spontaneously formed crowd has a primitive character, so demonstrating its strength helps to control the people in it.
- Expressiveness . An individual who accidentally finds himself in a crowd subconsciously tries to find an object of attention, a person whom he can trust. Most often, such an object becomes an aggressive leader who loudly expresses his own opinion.
- Information content of the speech . An excited crowd craves not beautiful speeches, but action. Correctly selected slogans help change the mood of the crowd, directing it in the right direction.
It is also worth considering the psychology of the crowd in trading. Read on.
Crowd Control Techniques
Crowd control methods are very multifaceted. If you need to promote a solution that is currently unacceptable, it is enough to delay it a little. At the same time, it is important to let people know that this decision was given to you with great difficulty and you hope that you will not have to resort to it. Perhaps sometime later, if nothing changes and we cannot cope with the current situation, we will have to take such unpopular measures. This way you give people time to get used to this idea, think about your decision and internally accept it. They won’t immediately panic and shout that you can’t do this, because right now you’re not doing anything. We all tend to look optimistically into the future and not take it very seriously. If you say that someday it will be necessary to reduce salaries there in order to set aside money for a new state defense project, then it will be someday, the main thing is that not now. But when this time comes, citizens will already get used to the idea of these changes and accept them without problems.
The dumber a person is, the easier it is to control him. In this regard, infantile phrases are very often used for propaganda or advertising, as if they were aimed at children with developmental delays or mentally retarded adults. When they try to deceive us and hide the truth, we are treated like children who are barely ten years old. This is how the speaker speaks to our inner child, whose criticism is weakened, he cannot filter information and make informed decisions.
Types of crowds by activity, emotionality, spontaneity
It is important to understand that a crowd is not a universal definition of any gathering of people, but is just one of three types of spontaneous groups, along with the mass and the public. The differences primarily lie in the reasons for collecting, the degree of organization and emotional excitement.
So the masses (for example, mass celebrations at holidays) are more organized, heterogeneous and stable. The mass of people are not capable of instant coordinated action, because... consists of unrelated individuals. To put it simply, people do not stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of some common interests, they simply spend time in one place, but each separately and in their own way.
An audience (for example, a theater audience) is a short-term gathering of people associated with a specific cultural event, announced in advance and well organized. The purpose of the public is to pass time, it does not have a leader, is not inclined to any joint actions (except for the manifestation of emotions) and is not so suggestible.
Read also: Glowing slime. How to make slime?
The audience can turn into a crowd, for example, if there is a fire in a theater. The crowd cannot turn into a public under any circumstances.
Crowd Signs:
- Number. Large numbers of people gather in relatively small spaces.
- Contact. Outside the crowd, a person guards his personal space quite jealously. In a crowd, people come into physical contact with each other, and perceive this as the norm.
- High degree of involvement. People in a crowd are capable of reacting emotionally even to events that would not be given any significance outside the crowd.
- Spontaneity and lack of even minimal organization.
- Uncertainty of the overall goal. The crowd is connected by a common emotional state and a common object of attention, but the goal is always blurred. There can be several goals, they can replace each other, they can be imposed from the outside, etc.
Crowd Control Methods
Emotions are the main way to control a crowd. They are the main enemy of logic and a sober view of the situation. They are the ones most often used to prevent us from understanding reality. Emotional influence on a person is the most common technique in NLP, which allows you to block the ability to rational thinking.
If we can still somehow filter information, then emotional influence allows us to touch the subconscious and directly instill any emotions, thoughts and behavior.
As already mentioned above, the stupider a person is, the easier it is to control him. Consequently, such a technique as debilitating the population is widely used in the practice of manipulating consciousness. Only a small percentage of residents have access to good education and quality knowledge resources. The majority either cannot afford it or do not want to. Why doesn't he want to? Because it is completely unpopular in popular culture. We are taught to mock intellectuals in glasses who are constantly learning and gaining new knowledge.
Smart people are a threat to power. Therefore, they instill in us in every possible way that it is much cooler to be uncultured, vulgar and vulgar. Of course, all this is not done directly and is never called by its proper name. But when we see on TV a big, pumped-up hero who kicks a smart guy with glasses and makes dirty jokes, we like him because the plot is written in such a way as to make them a positive hero.
What's in fashion now? Scandals, populism, personal lives of actors and singers, pseudoscience and constant theories about aliens. Anything to distract attention from important things and fill people's heads with unimportant duds.
In order to complete what was started and not allow the particularly smart to raise their heads, we are implanted with a massive feeling of guilt. Who is to blame for the fact that you have a small salary and no social guarantees? Only you. Who is to blame for the fact that your parents have a small pension? They certainly are. We are made to think so. And instead of somehow resisting the unfinished economic system, which drives us into rigid boundaries and robs us in favor of politicians, we pitifully hang our heads and consider ourselves insignificant. Attempts to change something rarely end in success. Under the weight of failures and the opinion imposed on society, a person sooner or later gives up, plunging into apathy.
Political taboos
The election campaign, like the East, is a delicate matter. Even if a candidate has perfectly mastered the technique of political PR, he can burn out on... colorful leaflets and expensive full-color posters. Especially if they were dropped into the mailboxes of low-income groups - for example, pensioners. It can be downright annoying. A person will think that flyers on premium paper cost millions. Where did the candidate get the funds for them? It’s a well-known case - he stole. And here no advice from cunning political marketers will save you. But even cheap promotions in expensive boutiques or car dealerships will irritate buyers - from a different social stratum. Therefore, if you notice that the same candidate has different brochures - as they say, for all occasions - know: this is not without reason. The same thing applies to the image. If the candidate acts as a “fighter for the truth,” the campaign should be modest, and if he acts as a “strong business executive,” on the contrary, it should be solid and of high quality.
The main thing for a candidate is that the voter does not get tired of him even before he has time to put a tick on the ballot and throw it into the ballot box. /© Depositphotos
Voters may also be growing tired of political leaders. Literally. Have you ever wondered why the well-known “old leaders” of parties suddenly gain a small number of votes at the next elections? People are simply tired. This is especially true for those promises that they made and did not keep. It is no less difficult - for obvious reasons - for beginners. Therefore, PR people come up with various tricks to increase the candidate’s rating. The best of them is a loud scandal. True, in Russia these methods are rarely used. Yuri Shcherbatykh: “...The Russian bureaucratic corps still has a poor understanding of the functioning of the mechanisms of public communication in a democratic society, understanding propaganda as “a primitive set of laudatory articles about oneself beloved, which no one except his subordinates and family members will ever read.” It is impossible to drive into the consciousness of such officials, raised in the era of a totalitarian regime, the thesis that a scandal or abuse in the media can be more useful for their promotion than a series of laudatory essays and tedious enumerations of their successes in the field of serving the people.” However, for us voters, such retrograde behavior is probably even to our advantage - there are fewer reasons for manipulation.
Crowd control technology
Crowd control technologies are improving every day. Science does not stand still, and it is constantly studying more and more new methods of manipulation. All of the above methods of influencing mass consciousness would be impossible without first-class training in the field of human sciences. In order to rule us, the ruling strata of the population must know us even better than we know ourselves. They study sciences such as sociology, psychology, biology, the latest developments in the field of neuroscience, and the like.
We are not even talking about conspiracy theories and other pseudoscientific fictions here. Our civilization has long been in the information era, which means whoever owns knowledge owns the world. And the fact that the media and the ruling strata of the population have a better knowledge of the world and human nature is obvious. It is thanks to this that they can control us, forcing us to do the things they want.
Now that you know the most common ways to influence human consciousness, you will be able to recognize them yourself and notice this influence every day. Learn to isolate this and think independently, expanding your knowledge and understanding of the situation every day.
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The crowd from a psychological point of view
Most likely, a crowd is the oldest type of collection of people, and the closest analogies to it are a herd and a flock.
Mass protests of people, spontaneous and often destructive, are not uncommon in the history of civilization. “Crucify him!” - shouted the crowd at Calvary. "Burn the witches!" - fanatics raged around the fires of the Inquisition. “Yes, long live the emperor!” - people shouted enthusiastically, welcoming the new cruel ruler and tyrant. These are quite common phenomena, they still exist today, only the external surroundings have changed, but the essence remains the same.
Even in ancient times, methods for controlling this unbridled element were developed, and they were successfully used by political and religious leaders. But the study of the crowd as a specific socio-psychological phenomenon began in the 19th century, when humanity in its development came to realize the danger of this phenomenon. The book “Psychology of the Masses” by the French sociologist and psychologist Gustav Le Bon not only laid the foundation for the study of spontaneous human communities, but also became the beginning of such a branch of psychological science as social psychology.
Psychological characteristics of the crowd
The crowd refers to spontaneous large groups. Unlike the other two types of such groups - the masses and the public - the crowd is based on emotions. People who find themselves part of this community do not have conscious common goals, but there is something that attracts their attention: information, a spectacle, an enemy, danger, an object of worship.
The high level of emotionality and exaltation characteristic of the crowd leads to two important effects.
The phenomenon of mental contagion
This ancient mental mechanism is characteristic of all social animals and even birds. Have you ever seen a flock of sparrows fly up instantly and for no apparent reason? This was the effect of mental contagion.
In the animal world and in the most ancient communities of human ancestors, psychic infection performed a very important function: the unification and joint actions of individuals helped to escape from sudden danger. In primitive societies, as a rule, the collective mind is stronger and more effective than the individual mind. The manifestation of this phenomenon can be expressed by the phrase: “Everyone ran, and I ran.”
It would seem that a person has long ago acquired independence and the ability to think and make decisions regardless of society. But in a crowd, under the influence of emotions, he loses this ability. A person becomes “infected” with other people’s feelings and passes them on to others, thereby increasing overall exaltation. And the stronger the hurricane of emotions (fear, hatred, delight) rages, the more difficult it is not to fall under their influence. I think everyone has seen how football fans go berserk in the stands, how fans of music bands rage, how people shout slogans with hatred at a rally or protest.
Their behavior seems strange, ridiculous, frightening if you watch the crowd from a decent distance or on a TV screen. But once in the crowd itself, a person quickly falls under the influence of its emotions and special mood. People become infected not only with feelings, but also with the energy of the masses; they feel the overwhelming power and permissiveness and are ready to sweep away all enemies or give their lives for their idols.
Any person in a crowd becomes bolder, more aggressive and more reckless; he can commit actions that he would never dare to do outside the crowd, violate the norms and prohibitions learned from childhood. I saw young girl fans tearing off their bras and throwing them to their idols performing on stage. How they tore the T-shirt of one of the singers to shreds. Are they capable of doing this outside the crowd?
Even more terrible is the infection of hatred, when people are ready to tear to pieces anyone who seems to them an enemy (or whom the leader points out), and such cases have been described repeatedly. And in a state of panic, the crowd sweeps away everything in its path and can even trample children and the elderly.
Loss of rational control
This second effect is related to the first. A powerful surge of emotions, which is supported and fueled by the crowd, causes a blockade of the rational level of consciousness. A person ceases to control and manage his behavior. What psychologists call an altered state of consciousness or clouding of consciousness occurs. People literally lose their minds and become part of a spontaneous organism that is controlled by collective emotions.
In part, this mental phenomenon resembles the state of passion that a person experiences during a strong and sudden emotional shock. But in this case, as a rule, he saves his life or the lives of his loved ones. But the emotional outburst generated by the crowd is not only senseless, but also very dangerous. After all, it’s not just one person who “blows the roof off,” but several hundred.
How a crowd is formed
A crowd is considered a spontaneous group, but there is always a reason for its formation, and often people who deliberately gather, “start”, provoke the crowd. The instigators usually expect to use the energy of this element for their own purposes. Sometimes this works out, but not always. It’s easy to create and warm up a crowd, but controlling this element is very difficult.
Who does the crowd consist of?
This spontaneous group consists of several “layers” of people who differ in their psychological characteristics.
- The instigators are the core of the crowd, their actions are often conscious and purposeful.
- The next “layer” is the most suggestible people, who quickly get turned on and do not notice how they are losing control over their behavior, obeying the mood transmitted by the instigators. “Suggestible” people are usually emotional, and often exalted people; they create that emotional atmosphere that covers everyone who finds themselves in the crowd.
- Random and simply curious people. Initially, they have a neutral and even negative attitude towards the mood of the crowd, but do not notice how they fall under the influence of the phenomenon of mental infection.
- "Hooligans" are the most dangerous part of the crowd. These include asocial, aggressive individuals who join the crowd for the sake of “entertainment”, the desire to fight with impunity, mayhem, and satisfy their sadistic inclinations. It is their actions and emotions that most often turn a simply emotional mass of people into a brutal crowd.
There are not always clearly defined instigators in the crowd. Sometimes the role of a unifying factor is played by some event that causes a surge of emotions: a performance by popular singers, the loss (win) of one’s team in a sports competition, a natural disaster or a man-made disaster. In this case, the core of the crowd is played by overly emotional people with an unbalanced psyche, who cannot restrain their emotions and lead others on.
Stages of crowd emergence
If a crowd is spontaneous, and the people in it are not connected with each other, then its emergence always has a reason. It may be some event or a conscious goal of a group of people, but the basis of the formation of a crowd is always what attracts the attention of the human mass. The very process of the emergence and development of a crowd also obeys clear psychological laws and goes through certain stages.
- Nucleus formation. This stage can take place in two forms: conscious (the core consists of those who purposefully gathered a crowd) and spontaneous (emotionally unbalanced people act as the core).
- Information stage, which in psychology is called whirling. People who have joined the crowd, out of curiosity or under the influence of the “feeling of the herd,” begin to quickly absorb information, fueled by feelings, and at the same time transmit it to others. Information in the crowd is always saturated with emotions, so there is an increase in excitement and readiness for action.
- A jump in attention. This stage is characterized by awareness of the object of general attention and often its change. That is, people's attention is redirected. In the case of conscious actions of a group of people, the focus of attention is on something that benefits them, for example, a common enemy.
- Crowd activation. The growth of emotionality and excitement requires its release, and a moment comes when the crowd simply cannot restrain itself and begins active actions, often of an extremely aggressive and even wild nature. If the instigators do not organize the activity of the crowd in time, then this element will become uncontrollable for them as well.
These 4 stages are not always clearly defined. A crowd can form and flare up like a haystack, especially if people were excited by some events and before the moment of consolidation or they are in danger.
