What is herd mentality: how to manage it and get rid of it?

Herd mentality is a term familiar to absolutely everyone. We succumb to this state when we cross the road at a red light after a group of “dared souls”, when we buy a product around which there is a stir, when we get angry at those who try to jump the queue. There are many examples of the manifestation of this instinct. But is it so bad to be part of the herd? And is it always necessary to resist this feeling? There are situations in which it can save your life, in some cases it is better to try to stand apart from the crowd, and in marketing and sales you need to lead the herd. Read on to learn how all this can be done.

What does herd feeling mean?

The herd feeling has been inherent in people since primitive times and, in fact, is an instinct that cannot be controlled by consciousness. We can observe the same behavior among representatives of the fauna, many of which lead a herd lifestyle. What makes animals stick together?

The herd is able to more successfully resist predators.
Migration of a large number of individuals is rational, while a single individual will certainly get lost and die.
By uniting, animals increase their chances of survival.

Thus, the herd instinct among representatives of the animal world ensures their survival and helps them avoid dangers. All this is also valid in relation to the human community. Since primitive times, children have copied the actions of their elders, which gradually formed a certain model of behavior, which today is called herd mentality.

In science there is such a thing as “crowd psychology”. Within its framework, it is possible to explain what underlies herd behavior and what characteristics are characteristic of it:

The aggression of a crowd is much higher than that of an individual subject.
It is easy to influence the crowd and evoke the desired emotions in it.
The crowd cannot look at the situation soberly.
The crowd is incapable of thinking and asking questions.
The crowd is easy to control, it is not difficult to provoke it into mass action (riot, rally, protest, criticism, condemnation).
In the crowd, individuality causes protest.
The crowd is not able to think and evaluate its own actions; it moves only at the direction of the leader.

It is a mistake to believe that herd mentality is the lot of narrow-minded people only. There are many examples in life when intellectuals fell under the magic of the crowd. In a simplified form, it looks something like this: accidentally finding yourself on the street among the protesters, a person notices that he is enthusiastically shouting slogans in unison with them, and after all this, finding himself at home alone, he wonders what exactly prompted him to such behavior, after all, he absolutely does not want to be indignant or demand anything.

Having met people running down the street, any passerby will catch himself wanting to join them, without even thinking about the purpose and meaning. And only then, finding himself in an unfamiliar area, he begins to wonder why he ran and where his head was. It turns out that the subconscious worked here, turning on the same herd feeling.

Examples of manifestations of herd feelings

Psychologists have always been interested in such a phenomenon as the herd feeling in people. It was actively studied, experiments were carried out to understand its origins and expressions.

Experience with children and blocks

One of the illustrative experiments was conducted with a group of children. They were shown several black cubes, but first the majority of the kids were conditioned to answer “white” when asked about the color of the cubes. The guys who remained in the minority, although they saw black cubes in front of them, still agreed with them, since they could not object to the opinion of the authoritative majority.

This experiment was featured in the 1971 popular science film Me and the Others and was later repeated many times with both teenagers and adults, and in most cases people agreed with the majority opinion, even if it was obvious nonsense.

People at a pedestrian crossing

Everyone has encountered similar examples in their life. Remember how a group of people stands at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the traffic light to clear the signal. But often there is a person who is in a hurry and, seeing that the road is empty, begins to cross it at a red light. Most of the crowd on the sidewalk immediately follows.

Behavior of people in line

Anyone who remembers Soviet-era queues is very familiar with the manifestation of herd mentality. Having heard that something had been “thrown away” somewhere, citizens rushed to join the queue and spent several hours in it. At the same time, it did not matter at all why exactly they were standing and whether they needed these things. They stood simply because everyone else stands.

The crowd has a strong energy that can easily subdue a single person. But only such obedience is exclusively destructive and can only lead to negativity: time is wasted, thoughts are tuned to a negative wave, true goals are replaced by false ones. Some people are so weakened by the herd mentality that they are capable of getting sick.

The elderly are more susceptible to this. For example, an elderly person constantly hears from his neighbors that the entire government is thieves. The average person has no way to verify the truth of this information, but he very willingly accepts it on faith. Thoughts about injustice swirl in your head all the time, causing irritation, anger and even hatred. A person who is constantly in negativity is doomed to illness. It can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Alcoholism

Some become alcoholics under the influence of herd mentality. He was a completely respectable citizen, did not drink, did not smoke, went in for sports, in a word, led a healthy lifestyle. But then friends appeared in his circle, very friendly with the green serpent. After a short time, our formerly respectable friend becomes an inveterate alcoholic. Being in the company of people who drink, it is very difficult for a person to resist a glass. Individual beliefs find themselves supplanted by the powerful energy of drunken, and therefore cheerful, friends.

According to the same scheme, out of a herd mentality, people begin to smoke and use drugs.

Environment

“Tell me who your friend is, and I will tell you who you are,” says popular wisdom. A person who grew up in a dysfunctional family is at risk from birth. The causes of addiction are tolerance to drugs and alcohol. Constant communication with people who use psychotropic drugs becomes part of everyday life.

Representatives of the intelligentsia are also not immune from bad company. Children of rich parents often become targets for experienced drug addicts, because they can make money at their expense. The scheme is simple - a person is hooked on drugs and every last penny is extracted from him.

What else can the herd feeling manifest itself in?

In any sufficiently large society of people united by some common characteristic, one can find examples of the manifestation of herd feelings.

Attitude towards those who violate established rules

If some individuals violate generally accepted behavior in some way, the crowd's reaction to them will always be negative. Remember how the queue treats those who climb forward, not wanting to wait like everyone else. What is the reaction to people who are late for a movie show or meeting? The crowd will always be dissatisfied, although the “violator” cannot be accused of neglecting morals and etiquette; he in no way infringes on anyone personally. In this case, we are talking specifically about the reaction of a large number of people - a herd feeling, and not at all about those cases when a person is late for a personal meeting or exam.

Reaction to humor

The crowd consists of people with completely different senses of humor, but their emotional reaction to what is happening, for example, on stage, will be the same. Someone starts laughing first, and then the whole audience joins in. And the opposite example: to some person what he sees seems very funny, but he will restrain his emotions if those around him are serious. People adapt their own behavior to the general background of the crowd, even if in other circumstances their individual reaction and perception would be completely opposite.

Skipping classes

Students play truant at all times, and pedagogy is powerless here. When the whole group breaks away from classes, even interested excellent students, who had no idea of avoiding the lecture, succumb to the herd feeling and join the mass. The same thing happens when the crowd declares a subject boring, but students who have the opposite opinion somehow agree.

In such situations, the strength of the herd feeling depends on the authority of those individuals who decided to skip classes. A few ordinary students may not influence the rest, but opinion leaders will definitely lead everyone with them, especially when the rest of the audience has weak academic motivation.

Fan movement

The most striking manifestations of herd mentality are demonstrated by sports fans, leaders of religious movements and people at rallies. Moreover, during personal communication away from the crowd, each individual behaves more restrained.

Under the influence of the herd mentality, people can not only act, but also ignore some phenomena. For example, the crowd walks around a fallen person - no one wants to take responsibility and stand out. The dominant idea: if he doesn’t get up, it means he’s dead, what’s the point of helping. Or people on public transport cover their eyes, pretending to be asleep, unwilling to give up their seat. Everyone hopes that someone else will show consciousness.

Adaptation as an important property of analyzer sensitivity

With prolonged exposure to strong stimuli, a gradual decrease in sensitivity occurs. And, conversely, when exposed to weak stimuli for some time, an increase in sensitivity occurs

This important property of the sensitivity of analyzers is called adaptation, which manifests itself in all types of sensations.

In such sensations as visual sensations, tactile, gustatory, temperature, olfactory - adaptation is stronger. For example, a gradual increase in visual acuity in the dark. Objects are not distinguishable when moving from bright light to darkness, but the sensitivity of the eyes gradually increases. In this case, they talk about adaptation to the dark and the outlines of objects become clearer.

It is weakly expressed in auditory and pain sensations. When the activity of the peripheral parts of the analyzers is disrupted, sensation disorders are most common. For example, damage to the receptors in the inner ear leads to the development of hearing loss, the hearing threshold increases and people can only perceive sounds of high intensity.

Diseases of the peripheral parts of the visual analyzer can reveal an increase in the absolute and differential thresholds of visual sensitivity and light perception. With damage to the retina and increased intraocular pressure, an increase in sensitivity thresholds may also be observed.

Various disorders of skin sensitivity are quite common. These may include temperature sensitivity, tactile sensitivity, pain sensitivity, etc. Pain thresholds for pain sensitivity disorders increase, and a decrease in pain sensitivity occurs or its complete loss - anesthesia. When pain sensitivity worsens, we speak of hyperesthesia. When aggravated pain sensitivity is accompanied by the occurrence of unpleasant sensations, we are talking about hyperpathy.

Temperature sensitivity disorders are expressed in increased sensitivity thresholds to hot and cold. In this case, people do not feel the touch of hot objects and can get severe burns. Tactile sensitivity changes less often. Sensations arise when touching human skin. A decrease in this sensitivity is observed when the peripheral parts of the skin analyzer are damaged.

Herd mentality according to the 5% law in psychology

In psychology studies, it was noted that in communities it is enough for five percent of its members to start some kind of action for everyone else to repeat it. In a flock of pigeons, as soon as 5% of the pigeons take off, the rest will also take to the sky. Or 5% of the frightened horses will lead the entire herd away. This phenomenon is called “auto-synchronization.”

Humans also exhibit similar behavior. English scientists conducted an experiment in which 5% of people in a certain room moved along a predetermined trajectory, while for the rest no restrictions were set. As a result, all participants adjusted to this minority and performed the same actions. If desired, anyone can verify that the five percent theory works. Select a group of friends in the required quantity and go to the concert. Start applauding whenever you want, and the whole audience will follow you.

Auto-synchronization works in communities where there is no conscious goal and there is insufficient motivation for specific actions. With reduced self-control, the crowd will repeat everything that 5% of people who are previously assigned a task do.

The five percent principle has been adopted by marketers. They create artificial excitement by spreading rumors about an impending shortage of some product. There will always be 5% of those who easily believe any rumors. They begin to sweep the desired product off the shelves, causing panic among the rest of the population. After a couple of days, the goal of the marketing campaign is achieved: all the goods are sold.

One should not think that every person, once in a crowd, will immediately succumb to the herd feeling. There are individuals who are not subject to the influence of others. They don't feel the need to join the herd. These are leaders who, by their mere presence, can make it much more difficult to control a crowd. A group of such individuals can make it impossible for the herd mentality to influence the community at all.

A leader's behavior that goes against the crowd makes others think about their own actions. An ordinary person starts to analyze, he begins to understand that it is possible not to follow everyone, but to act in accordance with personal thoughts, feelings and desires, that is, to be not part of the herd, but an individual.

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Advantages and disadvantages of herd mentality in people

In the minds of the average person, the herd feeling has a negative connotation, which in itself is also a manifestation of the herd instinct. Most people do not have their own opinions on many issues, but are satisfied with the judgments of authorities. At the same time, they are not at all puzzled by the search for evidence and confirmation. This position of the masses becomes a fertile field for manipulation by the media, politicians and marketers.

Since psychologists have said that herd mentality is bad, it means that for most it has become an axiom. But the herd instinct, like any phenomenon, has two sides.

Negative sides

The most important negative effect of the manifestation of herd sentiment is the erasure of moral boundaries, the leveling of ethical values. People acting under the influence of a crowd are capable of actions that they would never dare to do alone, and at the same time they feel their own impunity. Responsibility for actions in this case is, as it were, distributed among everyone, and the individual’s share accounts for only a small part of it, which is difficult to feel.

A person loses his internal moral inhibitions and becomes like an animal. In such a state, a crowd, with the hands of the people composing it, is capable of doing terrible things. Moreover, subsequently the participants cannot explain the motives for their behavior and repent of their deeds. Of course, such aggression under the influence of the herd instinct is an extreme form of its manifestation.

Positive sides

Nevertheless, the herd feeling can also act for good. Suppose there is a danger on the road about which a number of people have been warned. They definitely won’t follow it and will become an example for others who, succumbing to the herd instinct, will choose a different path. The result is lives saved.

Since the crowd effect can affect you in two ways, you need to learn how to resist it. To do this, in any situation you need to act consciously and remain calm. A cool mind in this case will allow you not to fall under the influence of the crowd and avoid negative consequences.

Statistics

According to WHO, the number of drug addicts around the world is growing at an incredible rate. Today this figure is approximately 48 million out of a total global population of approximately 7.5 billion people. The problem is that this data does not reflect the real scale. Many people, especially in third world countries, simply do not seek help. They cannot be taken into account when calculating statistical indicators. The real figure reflecting the number of drug addicts is much higher. It is worth noting that this also does not take into account people who use soft drugs from time to time. They cannot be called full-fledged drug addicts, but they are included in a high-risk group. They are only one step away from severe addiction.