Acceleration: the bigger the group/crowd, the bigger the bang
This is where the matter of large group acceleration becomes quite serious. We find large groups stampeding not just to avoid a threat, but also to exact revenge on a seemingly evil person, group or institution. Black men are lynched, wayward wives are stoned to death, and “troublemakers” are tarred, feathered and driving out of town. The bigger the crowd, the greater the violence in both intensity (level and type of harm) and scope (number of people being harmed).
Each of the contagious factors we have identified contributes to the group acceleration. However, there is another critical factor. This concerns a reduction in personal responsibility for the violent act—what is often called the “by-stander effect”. As Eliot Aronson (2018, p. 49) suggests:
“. . . the large number of people witnessing . . . tragedies militate[s] against anyone’s helping – that is, a victim is less-likely to get help if a large number of people are watching his or her distress.”
When there are many other people around us, why should we take the blame for someone’s misfortunates. There are many other people who could help. Why look to me? Furthermore, it would be “uncool” (socially disapproving) to show my emotions and take action. As Aronson (2018, p. 49) has observed, “when we are with other [people], most of us try to appear less fearful, less worried, less anxious, or less sexually aroused than we really are”. We trade in social responsibility for a stance of acceptable in-action. We don’t “lose our cool” when there are many other people observing us.
Expanding bubble of belief
The potential for mischief and even serious violence can expand when people are gathered tother for wrong, inhumane reasons. The individual and collective bubbles of belief are filled with additional misleading anecdotes and “alternative” realities regarding potential threats, sinister conspiracies, and menacing counter-leadership.
My colleague, Kevin Weitz and I (Weitz and Bergquist (2024, p. 9) put it this way regarding the contemporary crises of expertise and belief, as these crises relate to the power of collective gatherings in the generation of conspiracies:
“What has turned a loose collection of people who support an illegitimate expert and his flawed expertise into a tight-knit enclave that found threat, danger and enemies everywhere? What makes many people believe that they must protect that which (they believe) is true, virtuous and life-affirming? What, in other words, creates a conspiracy? If we are to better understand the crisis of expertise and belief, we need to appreciate the complex and powerful dynamics associated with how large groups of our population begin to believe conspiracy theories and often take self-defeating action based on these flawed beliefs.”
The two of us (Weitz and Bergquist, 2024, p. 9) observed that:
“Conspiracy theories result from the basic human orientation as a social animal to detect and explain threats—and specifically from the human tendency to categorize the world into ingroups and outgroups. There is a corresponding desire to protect one’s ingroup from powerful outgroups that might be dangerous. While this process is innate in humans, and has a survival component, it can also yield major negative outcomes for both in-groups and outgroups—particularly when people’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories is manipulated by unscrupulous leaders for their own benefit.”
Later in their book, we (Weitz and Bergquist (2024, p. 45) dig deeper into the nature of conspiracy. We quote Karen Douglas:
“. . . “conspiracy theories result from the basic human tendency to categorize the world into ingroups and outgroups and from the corresponding desire to protect one’s ingroup from powerful outgroups that might be dangerous”. While this process is innate to humans, and has a survival component, it can also have major negative outcomes for both in-groups and outgroups, particularly when people’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories is manipulated by unscrupulous leaders for their own benefit. In particular, unscrupulous leaders can undermine, demean and demonize leaders and experts in out-groups who put forward opposing ideas.”
