Crowd psychology is the general study of how each individual’s behavior is impacted when large crowds come together and form. This field of social science has progressed from the early examination of negative social groupings to the study of crowds in more socially proactive or emergency type of environment. In crowd psychology, there are different types of crowds which creates people’s minds to work differently together. In an aggressive mob, people tend to start acting more aggressive and violent towards something they believe in. An example of this would be a group of people feeling extremely angered by gun control laws, and they would express it by getting together and creating violence. Another form of a crowd would be an escapist mob which is a large group of people who are panicking and trying to escape. These types of mobs force people to work together and try to find a way to get out of the problem they are in. Expressive mobs are a large group of people who gather for an active purpose. This is the most common mob, in which they just want to fight for what they believe in, no violence being intended. Lastly an acquisitive mob are people who get together fighting for limited resources. This mob tends to be the least effective. An extreme example would be at a big sporting event and if one person starts chanting, then a whole crowd of people would follow naturally. In 2018, currently, there has been an ongoing debate around gun control. There was a student walk out on
April 20th in which students created an expressive mob. The students all across the world went outside for seventeen minutes to protest against gun violence. This is related to crowd psychology because some kids just ‘hopped on the bandwagon’ and followed just to fit in and not
for their own purposes.
Two main crowd theories that relate to my topic are collective consciousness and the bandwagon effect. Collective consciousness is a set of shared beliefs, or moral attitudes which operates as a unifying force within a society or group. This theory is what tends to bring together a mob of people in which creates them to follow one another. Émile Durkheim creates this to explain how unique individuals are bound together into collective units like social groups and societies. Viral challenges is a major social phenomenon that is occur in today’s day in age. Collective consciousness relates to viral challenges because viral challenges tend to have a domino effect and those who participate persuade people to continue the challenge such as ‘nominating’ those on social media. Another major theory that relates to my topic is the bandwagon effect. The bandwagon effect, also known as behavioral contagion, is when a certain behavior exhibited by one person starting and is copied by many others who are either in the area of the one who started, or who have been exposed to media coverage. Gustave Lebon studied the psychological mind of a human and has created the idea of the bandwagon effect. “The crowd- a study of the popular mind” written by Gustave Le Bon paved the way to the development of collective behavior. He focused on the normal individual’s behavior turning irrational or violent accordingly to the nature of the crowd. The bandwagon effect is a psychological phenomenon where people do something mostly because others are doing it, often ignoring their personal principles, where they just do it to fit in and don’t do it for the any other reason. These key theories both show how the human minds piggyback off of each other and they prove that people tend to follow each other.
The Gold State Warrior is the most popular team in the NBA right now because they have won many Championships. But the Lakers have a bigger fan base then the Warrior’s, because Los Angles is a bigger city then Oakland California.
A fan of the Lakers showed up to watch the Lakers wearing his Lakers Jersey and hoping they beat Golden State. Eventually it became very obvious that wasn’t going to happen. He could of still cheer for his team but instead he swapped jerseys and got into enjoying the winning side, Many called him a bandwagon fan, but he didn’t care he want to have fun chanting with the winners.
The game was play at the Warriors home court, which makes home crowd larger and the behavior of the crowd can influence other fans to join in and jump on the band wagon of the winning team. Also the crowd noise can have impact on the decisions that officials make. The players also feed off the energy from the crowd.
They are influential by the other fans and just want to fit in. Le Bon stated that in groups, they tend to develop a group mind that makes people feel, think and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual would feel, think and act where he in a state of isolation
.https://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/10.1123/jsep.14.1.13
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bandwagon%20Fan
The focus of the previous study was to see how people jump on the bandwagon, when a team is winning. The Gold State Warriors are a good team and they win a lot of Championships. Gold State have many fans. Most of the fan just like them because they are a winning team. True fans stick to their team even if they are losing all the time, but many people like to be involved in the cheering and chanting so they jump on the bandwagon even if it’s for the moment.
After completing my study I believe it went well mainly because my hypothesis was proved to be correct . One thing that I did very well was provide evidence to prove our hypothesis and I also had a good amount of information .
I believe this because not only does it prove my hypothesis but it also explains how a human mind works and how most of the time a person is not making their own choice but instead following what they see someone else doing. I believe people have to be more on their own because as you can see when they follow each other it does not do anything for anyone.
This also s explains how people basically can not make their own choices and just follow along with what everyone else is doing because they think that that its fun and want to be involed. right way to do things. I prove that people can not make decisions on their own and these theories help prove this in many ways. Gustave Lebon said the bandwagon effect explaining how when a certain behavior exhibited by one person is copied by others who are either in the vicinity of the original actor, or who have been to media coverage. Also the collective behavior theory created by Ralph Turner and Killian Lewis explains how a person’s actions and beliefs are influenced by another person. I used these theories because they prove how people do things whether they want to or not just because they see other people doing it.
I think it will always be the same way,at sporting events, people will jump on the band wagon and join in the chanting just to be involed or just to fit in .
Albert V. Carron2 The Home Advantage In Sport Competitions: A Literature Review March 1992 pp
.https://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/10.1123/jsep.14.1.13
www.thoughtco.com/collective-consciousness-definition-3026118
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