How to Resist the Crowd?
Groups of people can vary greatly—from a well-coordinated military unit to a crowd of soccer fans. The rules of behavior and management differ for each group. It is commonly believed that the most dangerous group is a crowd that has lost its bearings, as its behavior becomes unpredictable and uncontrollable.
However, Akop Pogosovich Nazaretyan, Professor at the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University and Chief Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, strongly disagrees with this view. He believes that managing a crowd is much easier than managing a scientific institute or a military unit. According to him, knowing the basic properties of a crowd and being able to act correctly in a critical situation are the main tools a thinking person can use against a skilled provocateur.
The Nature of the Crowd
Humans have always been social beings. Throughout evolution, social relationships have played a decisive role in the development of our intellectual abilities. In each person’s individual development, relationships with the collective are also extremely important. However, not all collectives are the same. Generally, the more complex and sophisticated the structure of a social environment, the more opportunities there are for the full development and expression of a person’s intellectual abilities. But this pattern is a double-edged sword. When a person finds themselves in a very primitive, unorganized group—in other words, a crowd—a significant part of their intellectual abilities mysteriously disappears, and instead, instincts come to the surface. In this state, people can sometimes behave worse than animals.
What Is a Crowd?
While a crowd is a type of group, it is not a true collective. A crowd is a mass of people not connected by common goals or a unified role structure, but sharing a common emotional state and a single focus of attention.
Does a crowd have a conscious goal? A true collective goal is one where each participant’s success depends on the success of the others. When such a goal appears, people form a group with structure, roles, and leadership. In a crowd, there are no positions or roles; instead of communication, emotional contagion takes over. Interaction shifts from a meaningful, semantic level to a psychosomatic one, resulting in mutual emotional infection. In such an intense circular reaction, it becomes very difficult to maintain individuality.
Communication differs from emotional contagion in that, during communication, each person remains an independent individual. When communication devolves into a circular reaction, individual differences are erased, and a person becomes just an element of the impersonal mass. Anonymity is one of the defining features of a crowd and a key factor in its power and danger.
Behavior in the Crowd
In a crowd, people start acting as everyone else does. There are extreme cases, such as during the French Revolution, when a mob of enraged sans-culottes attacked, tore apart, and even ate a hated courtier—a documented fact. In the process of emotional contagion, so-called evolutionary regression occurs. On a neurophysiological level, the lower layers of the brain cortex are activated, and primitive instincts take over.
Often, when people talk about crowds, they mean aggressive crowds. But an aggressive crowd is just one type. Even more dangerous can be a panicked crowd, where irrational, neurotic fear circulates. In terms of casualties, a panicked crowd can be even deadlier. There are also acquisitive crowds, which can be even more destructive. The main property of any crowd is its ability to transform from one type to another. Manipulating a crowd often involves turning it from one type into another.
Manipulating the Crowd
It’s important to note that after incidents like riots, officials often claim that crowds are unmanageable and unpredictable. Yet, in the next breath, they say provocateurs led the crowd to such a state. If a crowd is unmanageable, how do provocateurs control it while authorities cannot? This is often just an excuse for poor organization and preparation. In reality, managing a crowd is not only possible but often easier than managing a group.
For example, Ostap Bender, a famous fictional character, dispersed an aggressive crowd by de-anonymizing it—asking for names and addresses. This is a classic technique for dealing with aggressive crowds. Another method is transforming the crowd’s mood, such as turning it into a rhythmic or ecstatic crowd. In South Africa, they even invented a “musical tank”—a real tank equipped with water cannons and a sound system. When music plays, people start dancing, and the crowd becomes irrational, similar to a herd. The illusion of a crowd’s uncontrollability arises when people try to apply everyday logic to it. If you don’t know how to manage a crowd, it’s better not to try. The simpler the system, the more it follows simple patterns.
Limits of Crowd Management
While crowds can be managed, this is only effective for very simple tasks. A crowd is a good mechanism for destruction, but it cannot build. A crowd can storm a poorly defended object, but it cannot take a well-fortified position. Crowds are best suited for destructive or simple tasks. When we say it’s easy to manage a crowd, we must consider the specific goals involved.
Napoleon once compared the strength of Mamelukes and French cavalry: in small numbers, Mamelukes were stronger, but as the numbers grew, organization became more important. The distinction between a crowd and a group is not always clear-cut, but generally, the more chaotic the system, the easier it is to control, though it becomes harder to solve complex problems.
Safety Rules for Being in a Crowd
Here are three professional rules for safe behavior in a crowd:
- Don’t enter a crowd without a good reason. If you’re not there for work, stay away.
- When entering a crowd, always think about how you’ll get out.
- If you find yourself in a crowd by accident, act as if you’re at work. This helps you remain a subject of control, not just an object, and avoid getting caught up in emotional contagion.
Especially avoid the core of the crowd, where emotional intensity is highest. The “geography of the crowd” includes a core and a periphery, with the core being the most intense.
Examples of Crowd Behavior
One striking example occurred in Ankara, Turkey, in 1969. An aggressive crowd was attacking communists, who fought back with Molotov cocktails. Suddenly, four American women in mini-skirts appeared on the periphery—a shocking sight at the time. The attackers’ attention shifted, and the crowd dispersed, leaving only a small core that was quickly scattered. This shows the fundamental difference between a crowd and a group.
When groups like skinheads attack a market and then disappear, they are not acting as a crowd, and different tactics are needed to deal with them.
Specialists in Crowd Management
There are indeed specialists in law enforcement who know how to manage crowds to prevent incidents. For example, during the anti-alcohol campaign in Chelyabinsk in 1989 or 1990, a spontaneous “wine riot” broke out. For three days, people rioted, smashed windows, and looted stores. The police were paralyzed, unsure how to respond without using force. The solution was to quickly find a popular American erotic action movie to show on TV. The crowd dispersed to watch it, and the riot ended. This demonstrates how shifting attention and emotions can change the nature of a crowd.
Resisting Manipulation
While humans have many irrational tendencies, consciousness, willpower, and knowledge allow us to manage ourselves and resist external manipulation to a significant extent.