...be the individuals that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupation, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that...transform themselves into acts, except in the case of the individuals forming a crowd. In the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of the individuals,...

...occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a group puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind...feel, think, and act, were he in a state of isolation ".1 The fact is very well noted, but there is nothing surprising about it. It is wholly explained by...

...which makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation. A crowd is always intellectually inferior to an isolated individual, for it does not think rationally,...

...characteristics. The crowd forms a single being, and is subjected to the law of the mental unity of crowds. " The most striking peculiarity presented by a psychological...think, and act were he in a state of isolation. There arc certain ideas and feelings which do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into acts...

...occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a group puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind...into acts except in the case of individuals forming a group. The psychological group is a provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements, which for a...

..."Whoever be the individuals that compose it ... the fact that they have been transformed into a group puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind...feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation" (cited in Freud, 1959: 5). Writers who follow Le Bon invariably stress the pathology of revolutionary...

...influential work in the first half-century of social psychology. LeBon's basic argument is summarized in the following: Whoever be the individuals that compose...feel think and act were he in a state of isolation. (1895:27; emphasis added) The transformation was said to develop under specific conditions and in several...

...be the individuals that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupation, their character or their intelligence . . . the fact...feel, think and act were he in a state of isolation." Crowds, in Le Bon's view, develop such a collective state through a process of contagion and suggestion...

...today can see his reflection in a century-old minor. LeBon wrote that when people gather in a crowd, "Whoever be the individuals that compose it, however...feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation." People change when they join crowds. They become more credulous and impulsive, anxiously search for...

...motivations and experiences. Gustave le Bon set the tone in his 1895 book The Crowd, saying of participants: "[T]he fact that they have been transformed into a...feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation." 3 In particular, crowds were thought to be prone to violence. And other forms of protest—even the...