GROUP PSYCHOLOGY AND THE ANALYSIS OF THE EGO
I
INTRODUCTION
The contrast between Individual Psychology and Social or Group ^ Psychology, which at a first glance may seem to be full of significance, loses a great deal of its sharpness when it is examined -more closely. It is true that Individual Psychology is concerned with the individual man and explores the paths by which he seeks to find satisfaction for his instincts; but only rarely and under certain exceptional conditions is Individual Psychology in a position to disregard the relations of this individual to others. In the individual's mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a
* PGroup' is used throughout this translation as equivalent to the rather more comprehensive German ^Masse\ The author uses this latter word to render both McDougall's 'group', and also Le Bon's ^foule\ which would more naturally be translated 'crowd'-in English. For the sake of uniformity, however, 'group' has been preferred in this case as well, and has been substituted for 'crowd' even in the extracts from the English translation of Le Bon.— Translator?[
2 Grotip Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent, and so from the ver}^ first Individual Psychology is at the same time Social Psychology as well—in this extended but entirely justifiable sense of the words.
The relations of an individual to his parents and to his brothers and sisters, to the object of his love, and to his physician—in fact all the relations which have hitherto been the chief subject of psychoanalytic research—may claim to be considered as social phenomena; and in this respect they may be contrasted with certain other processes, described b}^ us as ' narcissistic', in which the satisfaction of the instincts is partially or totally withdrawn from the influence of other people. The contrast between social and narcissistic—Bleuler would perhaps call them 'autistic'—mental acts therefore falls wholly within the domain of Individual Psycholog}^ and is not well calculated to differentiate it from a Social or Group Psychology.
The individual in the relations w^hich have already been mentioned—to his parents and to his brothers and sisters, to the person he is in love with, to his friend, and to his physician—comes under the influence of only a single person, or of a ver}^ small number of persons, each one of whom has become enormously important to him. Now in speaking of Social or Group Psychology it has become usual to leave these relations on one side and to isolate as the subject of
inquirv^ the influencing of an individual by a large number of people simultaneously, people with whom he is connected by something, though otherwise they may in many respects be strangers to him. Groups Psychology is therefore concerned with the individual' man as a member of a race, of a nation, of a caste, of a profession, of an institution, or as a component > part of a crowd of people who have been organised into a group at some particular time for some definite purpose. When once natural continuity has been severed in this w^ay, it is easy to regard the phenomena that appear under these special conditions as being expressions of a special instinct that is not \ further reducible, the social instinct ('herd instinct', ^ 'group mind'), which does not come to light in any other situations. But we may perhaps venture to object that it seems difficult to attribute to the factor of number a significance so great as to make it capable by itself of arousing in our mental life a new instinct that is otherwise not brought into play. Our expectation is therefore directed towards two other possibilities: that the social instinct may not be a primitive one and insusceptible of dissection, and that it may be possible to discover the beginnings of its development in a narrow^er circle, such as that of the family.
Although Group Psychology is only in its infancy, it embraces an immense number of separate issues
4 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
and offers to investigators countless problems which have hitherto not even been properly distinguished from one another. The mere classification of the different forms of group formation and the description of the mental phenomena produced by them require a great expenditure of observation and exposition, and have already given rise to a copious*literature. Anyone who compares the narrow dimensions of this little book with the extent of Group Psychology will at once be able to guess that only a few points chosen from the whole material are to be dealt with here. And they will in fact only be a few^ questions with which the depth-psychology of psycho-analysis is specially concerned.
n
LE BON'S DESCRIPTION OF THE GROUP MIND
Instead of starting from a definition, it seems more useful to begin with some indication of the range of the phenomena under review, and to select from among them a few specially striking and characteristic facts to which our inquiry can be attached. We can achieve both of these aims by means of quotation from Le Bon's deservedly famous work Psychologic des fotdcs)
Let us make the matter clear once again. If a Psychology, concerned with exploring the predispositions, the instincts, the motives and the aims of an individual man down to his actions and his relations with those who are nearest to him, had completely achieved its task, and had cleared up the whole of these matters with their inter-connections, it would then suddenly find itself confronted by a new task which would lie before it unachieved. It would be
* The Crowd: a Study of the Popular Mind, Fisher Unwin, 12th. Impression, 1920.
6 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
obliged to explain the surprising fact that under a certain condition this individual whom it had come to understand thought, felt, and acted in quite a different way from what would have been expected. And this condition is his insertion into a collection of people which has acquired the characteristic of a ^psychological group'. What, then, is a 'group'? How does it acquire the capacity for exercising such a decisive influence over the mental life of the individual? And what is the nature of the mental change which it forces upon the individual?
It is the task of a theoretical Group Psychology to answ^er these three questions. The best way of approaching them is evidently to start with the third. Observation of the changes in the individual's reactions is what provides Group Psychology with its material; for every attempt at an explanation must be preceded by a description of the thing that is to be explained.
I will now let Le Bon speak for himself. He says: 'The most striking peculiarity presented by a psychological group ^ is the following. Whoever be the individuals that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a group puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind which makes
^ [See footnote page i.]
them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation. There are certain ideas and feelings which do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into acts except in the case of individuals forming a group. The psychological group is a provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements, which for a moment are combined, exactly as the cells which constitute a living body form by their reunion a nev/ being which displays characteristics very different from those possessed by each of the cells singly.' (p. 29.)^
We shall take the libert\' of interrupting Le Bon's exposition with glosses of our own, and shall accordingly insert an observation at this point. If the individuals in the group are combined into a unity, there must surely be something to unite them, and this bond might be precisely the thing that is characteristic of a group. But Le Bon does not answer this question; he goes on to consider the alteration which the individual undergoes when in a group and describes it in terms w-hich harmonize well with the fundamental postulates of our own depth-psychology.
' It is easy to prove how much the individual forming part of a group differs from the isolated individual, but it is less easy to discover the causes of this difference.
^ [References are to the English translation.— Translator?^
8 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
* To obtain at any rate a glimpse of them it is necessary in the first place to call to mind the truth established by modern psychology, that unconscious phenomena play an altogether preponderating part not only in organic life, but also in the operations of the intelligence. The conscious life of the mind is' of small importance in comparison with its unconscious life. The most subtle analyst, the most acute observer, is scarcety successful in discovering more than a very small number of the conscious^ motives that determine his conduct. Our conscious acts' are the outcome of an unconscious substratum created in the mind in the main by hereditary influences. This substratum consists of the innumerable common characteristics handed down from generation to generation, which constitute the genius of a race. Behind the avowed causes of our acts there undoubtedly lie secret causes that we do not avow, but > behind these secret causes there are many others more secret still, of which we ourselves are ignorant.^ The greater part of our daily actions are the result of hidden motives which escape our observation.' (p. 30.)
^ [The German translation of Le Bon, quoted by the author, reads ^beivusster'\ the English translation has 'unconscious'; and the original French text ^inconscients\—Translator.]
' [The English translation reads 'which we ourselves ignore'— a misunderstanding of the French word 'ignorees\ — Translator.]
Le Bon thinks that the particular acquirements of individuals become obliterated in a group, and that in this way their distinctiveness vanishes. The racial unconscious emerges; what is heterogeneous is submerged in what is homogeneous. We may say ■~that-^the mental superstructure, the development of which in individuals shows such dissimilarities, is removed, and that the unconscious foundations, which are similar in everyone, stand exposed to view. ^
In this way individuals in a group would come\^ to show an .average character. But Le Bon believes ^ that they also display new characteristics which they have not previously possessed, and he seeks the reason for this in three different factors.
^*The first is that the individual forming part of t.-a group acquires, solely from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible power which allows him to' yield to instincts which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint. He will be the less disposed to check himself from ±he consideration that, a group being anonymous, and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely.' (p. 33.) y
From our point of view we need not attribute so much importance to the appearance of new characteristics. For us it would be enough \o say that in a group the individual is brought under conditions which allow him to throw off the repressions '
4
IO Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
of his unconscious instincts. Theapparently new ^characteristics whichhg_,tben^ displays are in fact the mam lestations of th is unconscious^ in wh ich all that is evil in tHe human mind is contained as a
pFedisposition. We can find no difficulty inunder^ standing tEe~* disappearance of conscience or of a
^sehse of-responsibility in these circumstances. It has long been our contention that ' dread of society [soziale Angsty is the essence of what is called conscience.^
^ ■"'^ *The second cause, which is contagion, also intervenes to determine the manifestation in groups of their special characteristics, and at the same time the trend they are to take. Contagion is a phenomenon of which it is easy to establish the presence, but that it is not easy to explain. It must be classed
-t
among those phenomena of a Jiypnotix: order, which we shall shortly study. In a group every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a
■ * There is some difference between Le Bon's view and ours owing to his concept of the unconscious not quite coinciding with the one adopted by psycho-analysis. Le Bon's unconscious more especially contains the most deeply buried features of the racial mind, which as a matter of fact lies outside the scope of psycho-analysis. We do not fail to recognize, indeed, that the ego's nucleus, which comprises the 'archaic inheritance' of the human mind, is unconscious; but in addition to this we distinguish the 'unconscious repressed', which arose from a portion of that inheritance. This concept of the repressed is not to be found in Le Bon.
degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest. This is an aptitude very contrary to his nature, and of which a man is scarcely capable, except when he makes part of a group.' (p. 33.)
We shall later on base an important conjecture upon this last statement.
* A third cause, and by far the most important, determines in the individuals of a group special characteristics which are quite contrary at times to those presented by the isolated individual. I allude to that suggestibility of which, moreover, the contagion mentioned above is only an effect.
' To understand this phenomenon it is necessary to bear in mind certain recent physiological discoveries. We know to-day that by various processes an individ- \ ual may be brought into such a condition that, having entirely lost his conscious personality, he obeys all the suggestions of the operator who has deprived him of it, and commits acts in utter contradiction with his character and habits. The most careful investigations seem to prove that an individual immersed for some length of time in a group in action soon finds himself—either in consequence of the magnetic influence given out by the group, or from some other cause of which we are ignorant—in a special state, which much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotised individual finds
himself in the hands of the hypnotiser. . . . The conscious personality has entirely vanished; will and discernment are lost. All feelings and thoughts are bent in the direction determined by the hypnotiser.
' Such also is approximately the state of the individual forming part of a psychological group. He is no longer conscious of his acts. In his case, as in the case of the hypnotised subject, at the same time that certain faculties are destroyed, others may be brought to a high degree of exaltation. Under the influence of a suggestion, he will undertake the accomplishment of certain acts with irresistible impetuosity. This impetuosity is the more irresistible in the case of groups than in that of the hypnotised subject, from the fact that, the suggestion being the same for all the individuals of the group, it gains in strength by reciprocity.' (p. 34.)
* We see, then, that the disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the turning by means of suggestion and contagion of feelings and ideas in an identical direction, the tendency to immediately transform the suggested ideas into acts; these, we see, are the principal characteristics of the individual forming part of a group. He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.' (p. 35.)
I have quoted this passage so fully in order to make it quite clear that Le Bon explains the condition of an individual in a group as being actually hypnotic, and does not merely make a comparison between the two states. We have no intention of raising any objection at this point, but wish only to emphasize the fact that the tw^o last causes of an individual becoming altered in a group (the contagion and the heightened suggestibility) are evidently not on a par, since the contagion seems actually to be a manifestation of the suggestibility. Moreover the effects of the two factors do not seem to be sharply differentiated in the text of Le Bon's remarks. We may perhaps best interpret his statement if we connect the contagion with the eftects of the individual members of the group upon one another, w^hile we point to another source for those manifestations of suggestion in the group which are put on a level with the phenomena .of hypnotic influence. But to w^hat source? We cannot avoid being struck with a sense of deficiency when we notice that one of the chief elements of the comparison, namely the person who is to replace the hypnotist in the case of the group, is not mentioned in Le Bon's exposition. But he nevertheless distinguishes between this influence of fascination which remains plunged in obscurity and the contagious effect which the individuals exercise upon one another and by which the original suggestion is strengthened.
Here is yet another important consideration for helping us to understand the individual in a group: * Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organised group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilisation. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian— that is, a creature acting by instinct. He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.' / (p. 36.) He then dwells especially upon the low^ering in intellectual ability which an individual experiences when he becomes merged in a group.^
Let us now leave the individual, and turn to the group mind, as it has been outlined by Le Bon. It shows not a single feature which a psycho-analyst would find any difficulty in placing or in deriving from its source. Le Bon himself shows us the way by pointing to its similarity with the mental life of primitive people and of children (p. 40).
A group is impulsive, changeable and irritable. It is led almost exclusively by the unconscious.^ The
^ Compare Schiller's couplet: Jeder, sieht man ihn einzeln, ist leidlichklug und verstandig;
Sind sie in corpore, gleich wird euch ein Dummkopf daraus. [Everyone, seen by himself, is passably shrewd and discerning;
When they're in corpore, then straightway you'll find
he's an ass.]
^ ' Unconscious ' is used here correctly by Le Bon in the descriptive sense, where it does not only mean the 'repressed'.
impulses which a group obeys may according to circumstances be generous or cruel, heroic or cowardly, but they are always so imperious that no personal interest, not even that of self-preservation, can make itself felt (p. 41). Nothing about it is premeditated. Though it may desire things passionately, yet this is never so for long, for it is incapable of perseverance. It cannot tolerate any delay between its desire and the fulfilment of what it desires. It has a sense of omnipotence; the notion of impossibility disappears for the individual in a group.^
A group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence, it has no critical faculty, and the improbable does not exist for it. It thinks in images, w-which call one another up by association (just as they arise with individuals in states of free imagination), and whose agreement with reality is never checked by any reasonable function \Instanz\? The_jeelings__of^ a group are always very simple and very exagger-'^ a ted. S o that a group knows neifheP~doubt nor uncertainty.^" " """ ~^
^ Compare Totem unci Tabu, III., 'Animismus, Magie, und Allmacht der Gedanken.' [Totem and Taboo. New York, Moffat, 1018. London, Kegan Paul, 1919.]
^ [See footnote p. 69.]
^ ^ In the interpretation of dreams, to which, indeed, we owe our best knowledge of unconscious mental life, we follow a technical rule of disregarding doubt and uncertainty in the narrative
It goes directly to extremes; if a suspicion is expressed, it is instantly changed into an incontrovertible certainty; a trace of antipathy is turned into furious hatred (p. 56).^
Inclined as it itself is to all extremes, a group can only be excited by an excessive stimulus. Anyone who wishes to produce an effect upon it needs no logical adjustment in his arguments; he must paint
of the dream, and of treating every element of the. manifest dream as being quite certain. We attribute doubt and uncertainty to the influence of the censorship to which the dream-work is subjected, and we assume that the primary dream-thoughts are not acquainted with doubt and uncertainty as critical processes. They may naturally be present, like everything else, as part of the content of the day's residue which leads to the dream. (See Die TraumdeuHtng, 6. Auflage, 1921, S. 386. \The Interpretation of Dreams. Allen and Unwin, 3rd. Edition, 1913, p. 409.]) . ■
^ The same extreme and unmeasured intensification of every emotion is also a feature of the affective life of children, and it is present as well in dream life. Thanks to the isolation of the single emotions in the unconscious, a slight annoyance during the day will express itself in a dream as a wish for the offending person's death, or a breath of temptation may give the impetus to the portrayal in the dream of a criminal action. Hanns Sachs has made an appropriate remark on this point: 'If we try to discover in consciousness all that the dream has made known to us of its bearing upon the present (upon reality), we need not be surprised that what we saw as a monster under the microscope of analysis now reappears as an infusorium.' {Die Tratmideutung, S. 457. [Translation p. 493.])
in the most forcible colours, he must exaggerate, and he must repeat the same thing again and again.
Since a group is in no doubt as to what constitutes truth or error, and is conscious, moreover, of its own great sti-ength, it is as intolerant as it is obedient to authority. It respects force and can only be slightly influenced by kindness, which it regards merely as a form of weakness. What it demands of its heroes is strength, or even violence. It wants to be ruled and oppressed and to fear its masters. Fundamentally it is entirely conservative, and it has a deep aversion from all innovations and advances and an unbounded respect for tradition (p. 62).
In order to make a correct judgement upon the morals of groups, one must take into consideration the fact that when individuals come together in a group all their individual inhibitions fall away and all the cruel, brutal and destructive instincts, which lie dormant in individuals as relics of a primitive epoch, are stirred up to find free gratification. But under the influence of suggestion groups are also capable of high achievements in the shape of abnegation, unselfishness, and devotion to an ideal. While with isolated individuals personal interest is almost the only motive force, with groups it is very rarely prominent. It is possible to speak of an individual
having his moral standards raised by a group (p. 65). Whereas the intellectual capacity of a group is always far below that of an individual, its ethical conduct may rise as high above his as it may sink deep below it.
Some other features in Le Bon's description show in a clear light how well justified is the identification of the group mind with the mind of primitive people. In groups the most contradictory ideas can exist side by side and tolerate each other, without any conflict arising from the logical contradiction between them. But this is also the case in the unconscious mental life of individuals, of children and of neurotics, as psycho-analysis has long pointed out.^
^ In young children, for instance, ambivalent emotional attitudes towards those who are nearest to them exist side by side for a long time, without either of them interfering with the expression of the other and contrary one. If eventually a conflict breaks out between the two, it is often settled by the child making a change of object and displacing one of the ambivalent emotions on to a substitute. The history of the development Of a neurosis in an adult will also show that a suppressed emotion may frequently persist for a long time in unconscious or even in conscious phantasies, the content of which naturally runs directly counter to some predominant tendency, and yet that this antagonism does not result in any proceedings on the part of the ego against what it has repudiated. The phantasy is tolerated for quite a long time, until suddenly one day, usually as a result of an increase in the affective cathexis [see footnote page 48] of the phantasy, a conflict breaks out between it and the ego with all the usual consequences. In the
A group, further, is subject to the truly magical power of words; they can evoke the most formidable tempests in the group mind, and are also capable of stilling them (p. 117). ^Reason and arguments are incapable of combating certain- words and formulas. They are uttered with solemnity in the presence of groups, and as soon as they have been pronounced an expression of respect is visible on every countenance, and all heads are bowed. By many they are considered as natural forces, as supernatural powers.' (p. 117.) It is only necessary in this connection to remember the taboo upon names among primitive people and the magical powers which they ascribe to names and words. ^
And,- finally, groups have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without
process of a child's development into a mature adult there is a more and more extensive integration of its personality, a coordination of the separate instinctive feelings and desires which have grown up in him independently of one another. The analogous process in the domain of sexual life has long been known to us as the co-ordination of all the sexual instincts into a definitive genital organisation. {Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 1905. [Three Contributions' to the Sexual Theory. Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series, No. 7, 1910.]) Moreover, that the unification of the ego is liable to the same interferences as that of the libido is shown by numerous familiar instances, such as that of men of science who have preser\^ed their faith in the Bible, and the like.
* See Totem unci Tabu.
them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between
the two (p. ^^),
We have pointed out that this predominance of the life of phantasy and of the illusion born of an unfulfilled wish is the ruling factor in the psychology of neuroses. We have found that what neurotics are guided by is not ordinary objective reality but psychological reality. A hysterical symptom is based upon phantasy instead of upon the repetition of real experience, and the sense of guilt in an obsessional neurosis is based upon the fact of an evil intention which was never carried out. Indeed, just as in dreams and in hypnosis, in the mental operations of a group the function for testing the reality of things falls into the background in comparison with the strength of wishes with their affective cathexis.^
What Le Bon says on the subject of leaders of groups is less exhaustive, and does, not enable us to make out an underlying principle so clearly. He thinks that as soon as living beings are gathered together in certain numbers, no matter whether they are a herd of animals or a collection of human beings, they place themselves instinctively under the
^ [See footnote p. 48.]
authority of a chief (p. 134). A group is an obedient herd, which could never live without a master. It has such a thirst for obedience that it submits instinctively to anyone who appoints himself its master.
Although in this way the needs of a group carry it half-way to meet the leader, yet he too must fit in with it in his personal qualities. He must himself b e heldji-iascination by a strong faith (in an idea) in order to awaken the group's faith j he must possess a strong and inipnsing will, which the group, which has no will of its own, can accept from him. Le Bon then discusses the different kinds of leaders, and the means by which they work upon the group. On the whole he believes that the leaders make themselves felt by means of the ideas in which they themselves are fanatical believers.
Moreover, he ascribes both to the ideas and to the leaders a mysterious and irresistible power, which he calls 'prestige'. Prestige is a sort of domination exercised over us by an individual, a work or an idea. It entirely paralyses our 'critical faculty, and fills us with astonishment and respect. It would seem to arouse a feeling like that of fascination in hypnosis (p. 148). He distinguishes between acquired or artificial and personal prestige. The former is attached to persons in virtue of their name, fortune and reputation, and to opinions, works of art, etc., in virtue of tradition. Since in every case it harks back to
U"'
the past, it cannot be of much help to us in understanding this puzzling influence. Personal prestige is attached to a few people, who become leaders by means of it, and it has the effect of making everything obey them as though by the operation of some magnetic magic. All prestige, however, is also dependent upon success, and is lost in the event of failure (p. 159).
We cannot feel that Le Bon has brought the function of the leader and the importance of prestige completely into harmony with his brilliantly executed picture of the group mind.
OTHER ACCOUNTS OF COLLECTIVE
MENTAL LIFE
We have made use of Le Bon's description by way of introduction, because it fits in so well with our own Psychology in the emphasis which it lays upon unconscious mental life. But we must now add that as a matter of fact none of that author's statements bring forward anything new. Everything that he says to the detriment and depreciation of the manife