Freud and Le Bon's perspectives on the psychology of crowds

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

5 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

03/18/2009

Category :

Social studies

Sub category :

Psychology

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Summary :

Introduction
Le Bon: The author of The Crowd
1. Merging into the collective state
2. The perceived 'loss of self'
Freud: Theory on crowds initiated from Le Bon's
1. Emphasis on the role of the leader
Criticism of the theories of Le Bon and Freud
1. Le Bon: Criticized for cementing together ideas of other theories
2. Freud's view of the leader as fundamental to the changing of the individuals psyche
Research by Festinger, Pepitone andNewcomb
Zimbardo's experiments on de-individuation and anonymity
The convergence theory
The second idea of 'identification'
Conclusion
Bibliography

Abstract

Le bon was of the opinion that when people joined large, relatively unstructured social groups, they sometimes engaged in spontaneous and atypical collective behavior. Le bon suggests that crowds are ruled by a collective mind, and that contagion causes crowd members to experience similar thoughts and emotions. freud, on the other hand, argues that individuals, by joining crowds, can satisfy some basic needs for membership, hostility, and so on. Both of these theories are still popular today but lacking empirical evidence we strive to find more tangible theories that can be tested. Several theories have been developed since these accounts such as de-individuation, emergent norm theory and social identity theory and this essay will look at these theories and try to assess whether or not they are better than Le bon and freud's theories which lack any scientific basis.