Psychology of Crowds Plus Nationalism

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I was watching a show in which they were talking about North Korea's recent claims to attack the US, laughing at their stone age computer systems, & how easily the US flew B2's to drop dummy bombs on South Korea but for me the interesting thing was the crowd's response - hysteria with spontaneous "USA's" etc...

I wonder what literature I could read up on to find out more about this, as technical as possible, about the psychology of crowds mixing with the psychology of nationalism or whatever one would classify such topics under - I don't know if nationalism is the best word here but can't think of anything off-hand.

Odysseus

I don't have any link for Group Analytic literature, however, would this interest you. It relation more to crowds and violence but it might be a starting point for you. You can download it from here, it is quite a large document. Let me know if it is of any use to you http://www.scribd.com/doc/62156760/Crowd-Psychology-Public-Order-Policing-An-Overview-of-Scientific-Theory-and-Evidence

cranks

Have a look at Philip Zimbardo's book 'The Lucifer Effect' (2007). A populist title but don't let that put you off. You'll know that he's renowned for his Stanford Prison experiment in the early 70s.

Over the first half of the book Zimbardo considers the behavioural and psychological minutiae of how this experiment played out for its protagonists. He goes on to use these observations in consideration of typical behavioural and psychological patterns that ultimately underpin atrocities such as genocide - for your purposes, you've got consideration of the Nazi movement, Tutsis & Hutus in Africa, the Yugoslavian civil war, and Abu Ghriab.

Seemingly, Zimbardo was comissioned to look at the psychology of the shameful behaviour of US soldiers in Abu Ghraib.

With respect to North Korea, and based on my reading of this book, when we in the West begin to see propaganda that serves to dehumanise the NK people we're at the first step on the road to war.

Valmont

cranks wrote: »

With respect to North Korea, and based on my reading of this book, when we in the West begin to see propaganda that serves to dehumanise the NK people we're at the first step on the road to war.

That book sounds very interesting; I'll definitely try to read it soon. Regarding the act of dehumanisation, I've often wondered if the label of 'insane' or 'mentally ill' is dehumanising in itself? We might refer to ourselves as healthy people who are in control of our lives, emotions, thoughts and behaviours but the mentally ill are -- by definition -- individuals who we presume to have physically lost control in one form or another; whether over their moods, their thoughts, or their behaviour. Is this ability to exercise control over our own lives not central to being human? Someone invariably invokes the image of the hopeless addict here, pointing to the irresistible urges he is unable to control; however all we need to refute this apparent loss of control is one hopeless addict who has chosen to quit his particular vice; the addict who for whatever reason simply exerted that control central to his humanity. Do any of you think the very idea of mental illness is dehumanising?

*Sorry to drag this off-topic slightly*

Valmont

OP,with respect to your query I would recommend Stanley Milgram's book Obedience to Authority and maybe something like The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. I suppose it's not directly related but it seems to me any major works on totalitarianism fit in with the problems raised by groupthink/nationalism. I'm not sure what you mean by 'technical though?

dar100

There is a very good book by Donelson R Forsyth, called Group Dynamics. It may not be specifically what you require but it covers many different interesting topics dealing with group and group-think. It contains chapters on the underlying dynamic of groups in relation to power, leadership, decision making, conflict, influence etc. It also relates these issues to cases such as The Bay of Pigs, Milgram experiments, Apollo 13, Andes survivors and the Corona Trial Jury among other issues. It even has a chapter on group therapy, if your that way inclined. Good all round read.

Mardy Bum

The most basic form of nationalism which I would say a lot of other things spring from would be in group out group relations.

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Odysseus wrote: »

I don't have any link for Group Analytic literature, however, would this interest you. It relation more to crowds and violence but it might be a starting point for you. You can download it from here, it is quite a large document. Let me know if it is of any use to you http://www.scribd.com/doc/62156760/Crowd-Psychology-Public-Order-Policing-An-Overview-of-Scientific-Theory-and-Evidence

This was fantastic, I'm really amazed that the authors referred to in the little historical introduction are the main people whose idea's Edward Bernay's capitalized upon & I only wish I knew about ESIM & it's opposition to classical crowd psychology years ago, so this is much appreciated. ESIM is a very theoretical idea in a sense as far as I can tell, based off this, definitely in the same realm as the ideas of classical crowd psychology in that both postulate some kind of aura springing up from some Jung-like etherial collective unconscious that forces people to think in certain ways.

cranks wrote: »

Have a look at Philip Zimbardo's book 'The Lucifer Effect' (2007). A populist title but don't let that put you off. You'll know that he's renowned for his Stanford Prison experiment in the early 70s.

Over the first half of the book Zimbardo considers the behavioural and psychological minutiae of how this experiment played out for its protagonists. He goes on to use these observations in consideration of typical behavioural and psychological patterns that ultimately underpin atrocities such as genocide - for your purposes, you've got consideration of the Nazi movement, Tutsis & Hutus in Africa, the Yugoslavian civil war, and Abu Ghriab.

Seemingly, Zimbardo was comissioned to look at the psychology of the shameful behaviour of US soldiers in Abu Ghraib.

With respect to North Korea, and based on my reading of this book, when we in the West begin to see propaganda that serves to dehumanise the NK people we're at the first step on the road to war.

I've been ignoring this book for quite a while mainly because I didnt know anything about it, expecting too little of it, but looking at the examples you gave I've begun it & already love all the Dante references, the fact that it's going into some detail already & promises to go into more on the examples you've mentioned so thanks, also much appreciated

Valmont wrote: »

Is this ability to exercise control over our own lives not central to being human?

This fantastic little documentary really illustrates your point. If you can dehumanize a certain out-group, referring to the men as boys, having women constantly appear as the figure of dominance (pre-1960's here) as opposed to men, depicting them as being unable to control simple things like elections or courtroom sessions etc... etc... then it's easy not to think of them as human rather as something that needs to be controlled...

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In short, to sum up these are exactly the kinds of things I was looking for, anything having even vague relevance to the topic at hand that would motivate further reading really as long as it's got a bit of substance to it. I'll check out the other references thoroughly before commenting on them. To motivate some more responses, a great little essay I found relevant to this thread was The Sporting Spirit by Orwell:

"I do not, of course, suggest that sport is one of the main causes of international rivalry; big-scale sport is itself, I think, merely another effect of the causes that have produced nationalism"(there are some fantastic misinterpretations & character assassinations over this little essay worth reading if anyone's interested)

I wonder what people in here think of that essay, I've been torturing a friend for a long time using ideas that I think this essay articulates far more clearly than I could ever hope to. What do people in here think about the idea that chiefly in England and the United States, games were built up into a heavily-financed activity whose rise is bound up with the rise of nationalism, & that it's merely another effect of the causes that have produced nationalism? It's not a crazy possibility to think that the spontaneous "USA's" that follow on from bragging about how easy it would be to crush North Korea similarly follows from the same place as these.

dar100

I have read an interesting article pertaining to irrationality in crowed minds, it is suggested that people influence each other and high rates of irrationality can occur. This formation results in a mixture of individual minds into one collective mind. In the crowed-mind derationalized by passion, deactualized by memory, ideas and purposes are reborn as irrational beliefs and symbols, this way members lose their individuality and will behave irrationality.