Social psychology : an outline and source book / by Edward Alsworth Ross.

  • Edward Alsworth Ross
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Social psychology : an outline and source book / by Edward Alsworth Ross. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    67/408 (page 45)
    “There is a chatter, a rustling of programmes, a waving of fans, a nodding of feathers, a general air of expectancy, and the lights are lowered. A hush. All eyes are turned to a small door leading on to the stage; it is opened. Paderewski enters. ... A storm of applause greets him, . . . but after it comes a tremulous hush and a prolonged sigh, . . . created by the long, deep inhalation of upward of three thousand women. . . . Paderewski is at the piano. . . . Thousands of eyes watch every common- place movement [of his] through opera-glasses with an intensity painful to observe. He the idol, they the idola- ters. . . . Toward the end of the performance the most decorous women seem to abandon themselves to the in- fluence. . . . There are sighs, sobs, the tight clinching of the palms, the bowing of the head. Fervid exclama- tions : ‘He is my master!’ are heard in the feminine mob.” An excited throng easily turns mob because excitement weakens the reasoning power and predisposes to sugges- tions in line with the master emotion. Thus, frightened persons are peculiarly susceptible to warnings, angry per- sons to denunciations, expectant persons to promises, anxious persons to rumors. An agitated gathering is tinder, and the throngs that form in times of public ten- sion are very liable to become mobs. Although crowding, fixation of attention, and excite- ment exalt suggestibility, all members of the crowd do not experience this in the same degree. There are at least two descriptions of people who, in the give-and-take of the throng, are more likely to impose suggestions than to accept them. The intelligent are able to criticise and appraise the suggestions that impinge upon them. They are quick to react if a suggestion clashes with their in- Excitement Elements in the crowd that profit by the heightened suggestibility