The crowd, from the point of view of psychology, is an initially unorganized (or lost organization) mass of people that does not have conscious common goals and is usually in a state of emotional excitement.
A crowd arises in crowded places during natural disasters, military exercises, mass shows, celebrations, protests or transport clusters. The psychology of the crowd is complex and full of mysteries.
A crowd can be characterized by varying degrees of activity and level of emotional arousal. The psychology of the crowd depends on the nature of the formed group of people. For example, a crowd can be active (a crowd of aggressive people prone to cruelty, violence and destructive actions; a crowd of fleeing people, panicked). Zapaynaya literature distinguish demonstrating the type of crowd (a collection of people expressing protest). A crowd can be passive when it is not characterized by emotional components (crowd of onlookers).
The psychology of the crowd is characterized by such features that affect the behavior of individuals included in it. This is anonymity (people who join the crowd are sure that their actions will go unnoticed by anyone, hence the feeling of uncontrolledness and irresponsibility); homogeneity (when all mental manifestations of individuals are equalized to one common level and people are thoughtlessly influenced by calls and slogans); suggestibility (this is an essential and significant property of the crowd, which explains the unpredictability of its actions and the performance by people of actions that can absolutely contradict their consciousness and character).
In the crowd, spreading rumors are of great importance, which contribute to the spontaneous organization of people's actions. Mental infection is transmitted from one person to another instantly. The psychology of the crowd calls this the action of the law of the psychological unity of the crowd (G. Lebon's theory).
The irrational behavior of people in the crowd and high emotional tension are the result of all its other actions. A person involved in the crowd, in fact, loses his personality, individuality, turns into its conformal participant, capable of any actions. However, not all people are affected by this. It all depends on the level of mental and moral maturity of a person.
The study of crowd psychology is hindered by many factors. This is the suddenness with which crowds form, and the unpredictability of people's behavior, the instability of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the crowd, the aggressive nature and emotional tension of people. All these features interfere with the planned research. Data can only be collected by interviewing participants in crowds or bystanders.
The psychology of small groups is much more understandable, since it is easier to learn.
Small groups are associations of people who share common interests and interaction based on common goals. It is on small groups that the majority of empirical studies in psychology are conducted. This is explained by the fact that most of people's lives pass in small groups (family, company of friends, training and work groups, neighborhood groups, etc.).
In these groups, personalities are formed, the qualities of people are manifested. The psychology of relations in a team is studied by science from the point of view of objective signs of small groups, impersonalized and depsihologized. The group is considered by psychology as a factor of influence on an individual, his behavior, features of his mental states and processes.
Small groups are conveniently studied in laboratory experimental conditions. For this, artificial laboratory groups are created with the direct purpose of studying their specific properties. It is not possible to study the psychology of the crowd in similar ways, which creates the main obstacles and difficulties in the process of studying this problem.