NationStates Jolt Archive


Group Mind?

Chrintium
14-12-2006, 02:37
Everybody knows that groups behave in different ways than individuals. Consider a mob that does what no one person would do. Condider a corporation, which behaves in blatantly unethical ways at times.

The question is, how and why do "group minds" work the way they do? Do they actually exist? How does individual decision play a role in the group mind?

Personally, I think that people have baser thought systems that they actively repress, but often there are things we wish to do, but we want an excuse to do them. With a group, if enough people want to do the same thing but haven't had an excuse, they take the action together, in their mind fixing the decision on the other. Within a group, a person is capable of decisions, but sometimes people will intentionally (though not consciously) forgo the decisionmaking process and give it to the group.

Anybody else?
Forsakia
14-12-2006, 02:39
Everybody knows that groups behave in different ways than individuals. Consider a mob that does what no one person would do. Condider a corporation, which behaves in blatantly unethical ways at times.

The question is, how and why do "group minds" work the way they do? Do they actually exist? How does individual decision play a role in the group mind?

Personally, I think that people have baser thought systems that they actively repress, but often there are things we wish to do, but we want an excuse to do them. With a group, if enough people want to do the same thing but haven't had an excuse, they take the action together, in their mind fixing the decision on the other. Within a group, a person is capable of decisions, but sometimes people will intentionally (though not consciously) forgo the decisionmaking process and give it to the group.

Anybody else?

I'm sure there's a joke to be made about <insert idiotic group> having a group brain that each one only gets to use for <insert small amount of time> but I can't focus enough to make it.
Pyotr
14-12-2006, 02:41
There are more primitive parts of our brain in the limbic system, under certain situations of high stress, the more evolved parts of our brain take a back seat to these brutal, primitive, reptilian parts. When that happens our sense of ethics is skewed, if it exists at all, we can make decisions without any thought to the consequences or the well-being of others, and sometimes these decisions end in tragedy.
Intra-Muros
14-12-2006, 02:42
Eh? Like a 'hive mind'?
Anyway, people just feel safer in numbers. Especially when everyone else is doing the same idiotic thing, they don't feel so bad doing it themselves.
Chrintium
14-12-2006, 04:37
Well, I'm saying that people behave different in groups. I'm not talking about the borg, but my father helped a phD student do some grunt work for his project, which proved that people in groups are more likely to take big risks than people alone.

It's an interesting degree of psychology. And since societies are essentially group minds (think how we are cultured by societies to accept their values), it does apply to us in a disturbing number of ways.
Dexlysia
14-12-2006, 04:48
I think it's mostly due to a sense of security. If the shit hits the fan, it's usually only going to be a portion of the group that goes down because of it. But I'm focusing more on the social deviant groups: riots, gangs, organized crime, CEO's... In all those types of groups, the people higher up can shirk away from responsibility by having the grunts do all the dirty work, and the people at the bottom figure that they have a high probability of not being the one to get caught.
Dexlysia
14-12-2006, 05:19
Now that I think about it, it seems to apply to the non-deviant groups as well. Political parties, religions, schools of thought in any number of disciplines… In these instances, however, the security is not from physical harm, but from psychological harm. To share beliefs with a large portion of the population allows one to stay within the shell that society has created. Holding the opinions of the majority means rarely having to defend them. When it comes down to it, I think many people choose willful, dogmatism.
The Brevious
14-12-2006, 06:01
Everybody knows ...

...?
:cool:
Andaluciae
14-12-2006, 06:04
It's the perception of anonymity. If you think that you'll easily be confused with another person (consciously or unconsciously) you'll do stuff you wouldn't normally do.
The Psyker
14-12-2006, 06:08
Everybody knows that groups behave in different ways than individuals. Consider a mob that does what no one person would do. Condider a corporation, which behaves in blatantly unethical ways at times.

The question is, how and why do "group minds" work the way they do? Do they actually exist? How does individual decision play a role in the group mind?

Personally, I think that people have baser thought systems that they actively repress, but often there are things we wish to do, but we want an excuse to do them. With a group, if enough people want to do the same thing but haven't had an excuse, they take the action together, in their mind fixing the decision on the other. Within a group, a person is capable of decisions, but sometimes people will intentionally (though not consciously) forgo the decisionmaking process and give it to the group.

Anybody else?
The anthropological/sociological term I've heard for that is social/cultural efervecence(sp), it is also supose to happen with sporting events and religous rituals.