The Psychology of Mob Mentality

Why people are more violent in groups

Most people have an extreme aversion to causing harm. (On Killing, Grossman).

This is not because we’re “good” people. But because we evolved for an environment where killing just didn’t make sense-- the Paleolithic Era

Save an environmental calamity, resources were not only abundant, but highly fungible.

Covered in Episode I, the first known assault occurred during the Younger Dryas period of major drought. The scarcity of food finally gave people an incentive to kill each other.

So there was nothing to gain by attempting to harm someone from another tribe. (Intra-tribal male-male competition was not typically lethal.)

Therefore most of us evolved an intense emotional resistance to hurting strangers. (The 2% natural born killer being the exception.)

Mammalian Herd Security

But as part of a large group, the risk is distributed over many. So there COULD be a good incentive to eliminate a strange threat. 

So confidence grows as the risk/reward is different— One is safer so long as the mob has momentum.

But we didn’t necessary evolved to remain in “mob mentality” forever.

Like grasshoppers becoming locusts, it’s meant to be a temporary mutation for hostile situations.

Solitary, peaceful grasshoppers mutate into social, aggressive locusts in times of scarcity.

Mobs often gain or lose momentum (meaning number of members + member enthusiasm) based on it’s performance.

A mob that is “winning”— successfully completing aggressive acts, will increase the increase the confidence of the mob, adding members and enthusiasm.

This is simply because our mammalian brain registers that we’d be safer with the mob than against them.

Mobs often lose momentum once seems like the collective isn’t going to succeed in their goal, nor be able to protect it’s members.

A Mind of Their Own

Mob Mentality seems so “inhuman” because it runs on pre-human neural mechanisms.

As social mammals, we better excel against survival threats by working together.

Social mammals communicate through what’s known as Entrainment-- the syncing of rhythms or “feelings”.

Entrainment allows a pack of prey animals to feel fear and run before each individual has to see the predator. 

When a members of a group feel similar emotions, they create a positive feedback loop-- heightening the emotion in each other.

That’s why people laugh more when a comedy club is full… and feel awkward when it’s empty--even if the comedian is genuinely funny.

As individuals feel more and more aggressive emotions, they echo against each other, making the “hive mind” do things that none of the individuals really thought of.

Like movement of a Ouija board, it moves on its own.

But we ARE humans with rational thought. So to commit violence, something has to disable our humanity (which includes an identity of being a peaceful person).

Disabling Humanity

Even older than our mammalian social emotions, are our most basic reptilian survival programming. 

Any real physical threat to oneself or one’s loved ones will trump our morality. Most (hopefully) wouldn’t hesitate violently dispatching a threat to a child. 

The Scary Part: Moral appeals can be used to trigger these survival mechanisms.

Pavlov got dogs to salivate from a bell. Mob influencers get masses to “fight for their lives” against abstract ideas.

“That kind of thinking is DANGEROUS,” has become a common moral justification used on both sides of the political aisle to silence or slander opponents.

Such ‘Mob Influencers’ classically condition abstract ideas to concrete threats on survival.

It implies the belief, “if we allow such ideas (or such people) to exist, it will threaten our survival.”

Once a certain type of person or idea is associated with a fear response, you have riots, pogroms massacres, lynch mobs; And their more abstract versions: cancel culture, dehumanization, and general “Us vs Them” behavior.

“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering,” sayeth Yoda.