Mass Psychology Revisited: Insights from Social Psychology, Neuroscience and Simulation

Abstract

Mass psychology plays a role in many different phenomena like human stampedes, financial bubbles, fashion trends or political movements. Although of different nature, phenomena driven by mass psychology have a common ground: Individual decision making is replaced by psychological contagion, and facts are replaced by opinions about facts. The aim of the paper is to illustrate how techno- logical and methodological progresses in recent years advance the understanding for mass dynamics. Neurosciences allow for a better understanding of human behavior on the individual level; studies inter alia indicate that human brains are not well-equipped for independent decision making. Moreover, agent-based simulations close the analytic gap between individual decisions and collective outcomes. Simple simulation models for example reveal that the susceptibility of people to certain messages, opinions or emotions is the key factor for large-scale propagation of social phenomena. Results from both fields hence contribute to a better understanding of mass dynamics.