Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
Speaker 2: there's Jerry, and he squeezes together in a one meter
Speaker 2: square space. We're still doing pretty good on Stuff you
Speaker 2: should Know, you.
Speaker 3: Know, as funny as I was reading, and then we'll get
Speaker 3: to it. But when things start to become problematic as
Speaker 3: far as people per square meter, and I started to panic.
Speaker 2: Oh really, Yeah, that didn't get me, But it occurred
Speaker 2: to me that some people listening to this are going
Speaker 2: to feel that way too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because we're talking about crowds, and if even the
Speaker 3: discussion of being in very close proximity to someone else
Speaker 3: triggers you, then consider this your warning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, great job, Chuck. Yeah, sure, So we are
Speaker 2: talking crowds today, Chuck, you spoiled the entire episode by
Speaker 2: mentioning that, Yeah, I'm just kidding, buddy. And generally think
Speaker 2: of this this huge mass of people, say like at
Speaker 2: a concert or something like that, or a show if
Speaker 2: you're into indie bands, but it can be any assemblage
Speaker 2: of people, any group of people. I'm guessing more than
Speaker 2: two if that old adage is correct, about three being
Speaker 2: a crowd, but it can be anything from a bunch
Speaker 2: of people in an elevator to a bunch of people
Speaker 2: going to Mecca flocking to Mecca for the Hodge on
Speaker 2: any given year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like technically just any any grouping who
Speaker 3: put this one together.
Speaker 4: By the way, initially.
Speaker 2: This was a Julia joint And thank you for reminding
Speaker 2: me before we go further. Kimberly from the Prison Labor
Speaker 2: listener Mail is the person who got this one going.
Speaker 2: So thanks Kimberly.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, thanks big time because I thought this was
Speaker 3: super interesting. But yeah, yeah, I mean Julia did some
Speaker 3: research and basically came back with this a crowd as
Speaker 3: any group of people temporarily gathered in the same physical
Speaker 3: relatively close to each other elevators.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean it's a little surprising if you think
Speaker 2: about it. For some reason, I got hooked on the
Speaker 2: elevator thing. But there's a lot of different reasons those
Speaker 2: people could be together. They're all going to different floors
Speaker 2: in the same building, say if they happen to be
Speaker 2: on an elevator, or they could all have a shared
Speaker 2: interest they're all at a gun show, or they have
Speaker 2: a shared goal they're trying to overthrow their regime, their
Speaker 2: ruling regime. There's all sorts of different reasons people come
Speaker 2: together in crowds. Sometimes it's on purpose, sometimes it's not
Speaker 2: planned by that person, but it just happens. And one
Speaker 2: of the cool things is we've been studying crowds through
Speaker 2: all sorts of different lenses, and we've kind of whittled
Speaker 2: down to the fact that humans are essentially innately good
Speaker 2: at navigating crowds for the most part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, some of the stuff Julia came back
Speaker 3: with was fairly like you might be a little scared
Speaker 3: of crowds, but it is good to know that that
Speaker 3: is sort of outdated thinking and why we will talk
Speaker 3: about bad things that can happen in crowds. The modern
Speaker 3: understanding of crowds, You're right, is that people are generally
Speaker 3: pretty orderly, even in the face of disaster, and the
Speaker 3: things that make a crowd go bad. A lot of
Speaker 3: times it's not the crowd's fault.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they get blamed by authorities very frequently in retrospect,
Speaker 2: and then in further retrospect it turns out like, no, actually,
Speaker 2: the authorities are probably at fault in this case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's almost as if sometimes a peaceful
Speaker 3: protest can turn bad when an armed military shows up, right,
Speaker 3: just the presence of that, just the presence and then
Speaker 3: other things that happen after.
Speaker 2: Right, So yes, and we'll talk about that for sure,
Speaker 2: because there is a huge role for law enforcement and
Speaker 2: dealing with crowds, like it's part of their job. Sure,
Speaker 2: crowd out, they say crowd control, but that's apparently an
Speaker 2: outdated term as well. But dealing with crowds, managing crowds,
Speaker 2: So that's part of their job. That's not gonna go away.
Speaker 2: We don't really want it to go away. Instead, we
Speaker 2: want law enforcement to do it in the using the
Speaker 2: best practices that have been proven over and over again
Speaker 2: that cut down the chance of a crowd turning ugly
Speaker 2: by huge percentages.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, one thing is for sure, like
Speaker 3: people behave differently in crowds, and sometimes it's great. You know,
Speaker 3: I never I never dance like this man, but I'm
Speaker 3: at burning man and look at me all of a sudden, right,
Speaker 3: or it can turn bad and we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 3: cover all angles.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about some of the bad ones, because
Speaker 2: there are some famous ones that this happens. You don't
Speaker 2: want to say a lot, but it's one of those
Speaker 2: things like a plane crash, where it seems like it
Speaker 2: will happen all the time because it's just so shocking
Speaker 2: details of it. Whenever it does happen, it seems like
Speaker 2: it happens way more frequently. That's just not the case.
Speaker 2: But when it does happen, like I said, it can
Speaker 2: be pretty bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, because people can get trampled, people can
Speaker 3: be squashed by force, like in a crowd rush. Pressure
Speaker 3: can reach a thousand pounds of force, which is a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that can lead to loss of life, notably, like you said,
Speaker 3: we're going to mention a handful, but the Astro World
Speaker 3: Festival in Houston very sadly in twenty twenty one at
Speaker 3: the Travis Scott performance, ten people lost their lives and
Speaker 3: many more were injured.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one I hadn't heard of that was
Speaker 2: pretty bad, quite bad. It happened at the coronation of
Speaker 2: Zar Nicholas the Second in Moscow in eighteen ninety six. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a crowd of half a million people who
Speaker 2: were all there for the coronation, and they knew that
Speaker 2: they were giving out free souvenirs. Essentially, I saw half
Speaker 2: a pound of sausage, bags of nuts, a souvenir cup,
Speaker 2: and apparently they had enough for everybody, but a rumor
Speaker 2: spread in the crowd that they didn't have enough for everybody,
Speaker 2: so the people in the back started pushing. A stampede
Speaker 2: broke out. In thirteen one hundred people died.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it feels like concerts.
Speaker 3: In sporting events, it can be dozens of people, which
Speaker 3: is all incredibly sad, But when people in the order
Speaker 3: of thousands are dying, yeah, from an event, that's pretty striking.
Speaker 2: And that really follows the model. It seems like for
Speaker 2: loss of life in crowd crushes, there's some sort of
Speaker 2: bottleneck toward the front, and it's wider in back, so
Speaker 2: people in back start pushing and the people in front
Speaker 2: can't go forward, so they get crushed. That seems to
Speaker 2: be like the case. That's what happened in Astro World,
Speaker 2: That's what happened in Moscow, That's what happened in Dusburg, Germany,
Speaker 2: at the world's largest techno festival, the Love Parade.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 3: Twenty ten twenty one people died and it was a
Speaker 3: tunnel in that case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it also happened. I mentioned the Haje and two
Speaker 2: thousand people. Two thousand people died at the Hajje as
Speaker 2: part of that annual pilgrim to Mecca that all Muslims
Speaker 2: are required to do at least once in their lifetime. Well,
Speaker 2: they have like on the order of one and a
Speaker 2: half million people, up to two million people every year
Speaker 2: do this thing. And in twenty fifteen, two thousand people
Speaker 2: died because there was a bottleneck people push from the back,
Speaker 2: and that actually broke the previous record of the most
Speaker 2: people killed in a crowd crush that was also at
Speaker 2: the Hajj, this time in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: Yeah, super super sad. Because of all these tragedies, people
Speaker 3: have been studying how people move through crowds, crowd dynamics.
Speaker 3: It's you know, they use a lot of different sciences.
Speaker 3: Physics definitely is one, and we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: all these, but also physiology, psychology certainly, and what they're
Speaker 3: looking at is human behavior, how people behave when they
Speaker 3: get into crowd because it changes once you have sort
Speaker 3: of a veil of anonymity going on, and again it
Speaker 3: can be good or bad. But they use this in
Speaker 3: all all kinds of modeling, whether it's you know, in
Speaker 3: city planning or certainly event preparation, disaster management, crowd management,
Speaker 3: all kinds of people like we'll pay people a lot
Speaker 3: of money to study and give their findings.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned applying the principles of physics to studying this.
Speaker 2: I think that started in the fifties. And it's not
Speaker 2: like tit for tat, but the movement and the formation
Speaker 2: of crowds resembles it so much that you can basically
Speaker 2: use physics terms like orbital motion or oscillators to basically
Speaker 2: describe how people behave in a crowd and how crowds
Speaker 2: behave themselves. One of the ways of looking at a
Speaker 2: systems theory and complex adapted systems are what crowds do.
Speaker 2: It's chaotic at first, but then they start to move
Speaker 2: together as a whole. Lines of communication develop without speech.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of like the crowd learns through feedback
Speaker 2: and it just starts. It becomes a cohesive of whole
Speaker 2: rather than just a bunch of people together into space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, certainly fluid dynamics is a factor, and
Speaker 3: they kind of use some of that terminology as well
Speaker 3: when talking about crowds, because if you're a fluid, like
Speaker 3: let's say you're a liquid or even a gas, the
Speaker 3: particles are really tightly packed, but they're never actually colliding
Speaker 3: because they have electrons repelling each other. Yeah, we do
Speaker 3: a similar thing, but it's called what's known as social force.
Speaker 3: It's that thing when you're in a crowd and you
Speaker 3: just unconsciously instinctively navigate without like constantly bumping into other people,
Speaker 3: at least if.
Speaker 4: You're doing it right right.
Speaker 3: I've been in crowds where people are a little more unaware,
Speaker 3: and there may be reasons for that, so I'm not
Speaker 3: like casting aspersions. But generally speaking, your body is just
Speaker 3: automatically adjusting because you want that path of least resistance.
Speaker 3: You don't want to be banging into people all around you.
Speaker 3: And even in great crowds like a huge excited stadium
Speaker 3: after a big sports win or after a big energetic
Speaker 3: concert or something, you still find your way out of
Speaker 3: there generally, you know, not making contact with other people.
Speaker 3: Maybe slight you know, bumps here and there, but unless
Speaker 3: someone really has their head up their butt or they're
Speaker 3: super drunk, or there may be other you know, some
Speaker 3: genuine factor. They can't help. They're not just banging right
Speaker 3: into people constantly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That made me wonder if it's electrons repelling each
Speaker 2: other that keeps liquids from bumping into one another. I
Speaker 2: wonder if the collective group of electrons in our bodies
Speaker 2: are what makes us inherently makes us inherently avoid it
Speaker 2: and almostatic sense for that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I like that, Eddie.
Speaker 2: It's like the quantum explanation of swerving.
Speaker 4: Yeah, little hippie dippy.
Speaker 2: So there are a couple things that we've figured out
Speaker 2: about crowds that the way that they behave is again,
Speaker 2: this is spontaneous. I don't even know if we've said it,
Speaker 2: so maybe not. Again, it's spontaneous, it's unconscious typically, and
Speaker 2: it's collective. Right, So we're actually moving cooperatively with other people,
Speaker 2: whether we realize it or not. We think we're just
Speaker 2: trying to make it to the exit because we want
Speaker 2: to get to our car first so we can get
Speaker 2: the heck out of the parking lot as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: But we're actually unconsciously moving in conjunction with other people.
Speaker 2: One of the really great ways that that expresses itself
Speaker 2: is in lane formation, which is well, it's exactly what
Speaker 2: it sounds like, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's people kind of gathering and moving in one
Speaker 3: direction together forming a lane. No one's taking the lead
Speaker 3: and saying everyone, this is the United States, So we
Speaker 3: generally walk down the right side of the hallway or
Speaker 3: the corridor and other people on the left. That is
Speaker 3: something when I've traveled abroad I had to get used
Speaker 3: to because I didn't realize the rules of the road
Speaker 3: typically apply to moving around the world as well. So
Speaker 3: I I didn't know that until I went over to
Speaker 3: England for the first time and was bumping into people constantly.
Speaker 3: But yeah, here in the United States, it's generally right side,
Speaker 3: left side or I guess it doesn't explain it well,
Speaker 3: but no, you did you move along the right side
Speaker 3: of a hallway?
Speaker 2: Sure, And that's just a difference in the electron spin
Speaker 2: of people in Europe and the people in the US.
Speaker 2: Oh Man, I also mentioned orbital motion too, right, So
Speaker 2: apparently in a crowd people moving in the same direction,
Speaker 2: or if you're in a crowd, that's just basically in
Speaker 2: one place. I think they studied the Festival of the
Speaker 2: Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. To get this information.
Speaker 2: You basically create you move in a circle in an
Speaker 2: orbit is what they call it, and you complete this
Speaker 2: orbit in about eighteen seconds. And when I was reading this,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that's just not true. And then I went
Speaker 2: and watched video of this study, and yes, people just
Speaker 2: move around in a tight circle. Basically, you're moving because
Speaker 2: other people are moving, but you're ultimately you're keeping your
Speaker 2: same space this one orbital circle, which is awesome.
Speaker 3: I mean to be clear, because that sounded slightly confusing.
Speaker 3: People are not walking in a tight circle. You're just
Speaker 3: moving your body within a circular space, right, like maybe
Speaker 3: raising your elbow to scratch your head or something like that.
Speaker 2: Right, So imagine imagine the person in front of you.
Speaker 2: Imagine the person in front of you is backing up,
Speaker 2: so you back up and then you maybe moved to
Speaker 2: the right, and then they move this way and you
Speaker 2: kind of come forward to your left, and then you
Speaker 2: kind of back up a little bit to your left,
Speaker 2: and then you back up center like that. So you're
Speaker 2: facing the same way the whole time, but you're just
Speaker 2: shuffling your feet in the way that you're doing this.
Speaker 2: You're ultimately creating an orbit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that also applies to just taking
Speaker 3: up your personal space with general body.
Speaker 2: Yes, the electrons.
Speaker 3: So this this works out pretty great, this idea of
Speaker 3: social force, it seems to work pretty well. And even
Speaker 3: in big crowds, when it starts to get a little
Speaker 3: more highly dense is when it's a problem. And this
Speaker 3: is where you might get triggered. Like I was. And
Speaker 3: I don't even mind crowds, but when it started talking
Speaker 3: and getting like denser and denser, I just found myself
Speaker 3: getting a little you know, my breathing sort of increased.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So at two people per square meter, a crowd moves
Speaker 3: a little slower because they're still trying to you know,
Speaker 3: get that distance between you and and your friend next
Speaker 3: to you. Four people, you're going to start to bump
Speaker 3: around a little bit. At six people, things get truly difficult.
Speaker 3: And at ten people per square meter and I measured
Speaker 3: that out on the floor, that made me panic a
Speaker 3: little bit. That means individual movement is basically impossible, and
Speaker 3: the likelihood of, like in a big crowd that's that dense,
Speaker 3: something bad is likely to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the point where you can't raise your arms,
Speaker 2: they're at your side. If a crush starts to have happened,
Speaker 2: you can't breathe, so they're like, you can die of asphyxiation.
Speaker 2: There is a very famous tragedy in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: in Soul, a Taiwan, tragedy where kids in their twenties,
Speaker 2: healthy kids in their twenties died of heart attacks because
Speaker 2: they asphyxiated and their heart stopped because of a crowd crush. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you're wondering what this all looks like, we
Speaker 3: didn't do big max. Should do one big max, but
Speaker 3: six people per square meter where you know it's not tragic,
Speaker 3: but movement is difficult. That's about seventeen hundred people packed
Speaker 3: onto a tennis court.
Speaker 4: Yep, So that's a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was at six. We're talking ten is
Speaker 2: when you can really be in trouble. Now, that is
Speaker 2: not guaranteed that something's going to go wrong. In a
Speaker 2: Taiwan there were like this, This situation was going on
Speaker 2: for an hour or so before it turned problematic. So
Speaker 2: as long as the people in the back are doing
Speaker 2: good and not pushing, as long as somebody in the
Speaker 2: center doesn't faint and fall over or trip and fall down.
Speaker 2: This can work. It's not inherently going to be deadly,
Speaker 2: but the chances of it becoming dead it's just sitting
Speaker 2: there balancing on the razor's edge at that point, it's
Speaker 2: a really dangerous place to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that one triggering incident is when it can
Speaker 3: really go south there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it's scary.
Speaker 3: Shall we take a break, Yes, all right, we'll be
Speaker 3: right back with more crowds.
Speaker 1: Stop you shut.
Speaker 4: All right. So we covered partially coverage physics.
Speaker 3: We should talk a little bit about psychology because crowds
Speaker 3: have their own distinct psychology around them as well, and
Speaker 3: people can behave in ways that they don't normally behave
Speaker 3: in a crowd just because of that psychology. And early
Speaker 3: on the explanation for that was like, if there's a
Speaker 3: violent crowd, then it was just full of violent people, right.
Speaker 3: And there was a French psychologist named Gustave Lebon in
Speaker 3: eighteen ninety five who wrote the literal book on this,
Speaker 3: like the first one called the Crowd Colon a Study
Speaker 3: of the Popular Mind, and it was very influential. But
Speaker 3: this is one of those that's a little outdated in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's right in some ways. But his whole thing was, like,
Speaker 2: you have any crowd together, they're inherently mindless, they form
Speaker 2: a collective mind, they become capable of anything. They're very suggestible.
Speaker 2: They're going to kill everybody in their path, right, and
Speaker 2: like there are crowds that have done that before. Sure,
Speaker 2: but that's not the inherent I guess trait of crowds.
Speaker 2: Like crowds are actually the opposite. They're actually way more
Speaker 2: peaceful and pro social than that. But Lebon essentially set
Speaker 2: the view of crowds that's still persistent today in a
Speaker 2: lot of quarters. And he did. Yeah, he just had
Speaker 2: a huge impact on this.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, if you look at the different explanations over the
Speaker 3: years of like this collective behavior, because collective behavior is
Speaker 3: definitely happening.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are a few different theories.
Speaker 3: One is a contagion theory and that was put forth
Speaker 3: by Lebon himself, which is that this irrational behaviors that
Speaker 3: happened in a crowd spreads like a virus. Yeah, that
Speaker 3: can happen, and it also can't. So I'm sort of
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty on that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, like all of this stuff makes sense. It's
Speaker 2: just not like this is the most salacious rare version
Speaker 2: of crowds, right. Yeah, you can also make the case
Speaker 2: like good positive behavior can be contagious in a crowd
Speaker 2: as well, because, like you said, people behave differently in crowds.
Speaker 2: That's just a fact.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like that dancing at Burning Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. There's also convergence theory, which also makes a
Speaker 2: bit of sense that explains why crowds have a collective mind,
Speaker 2: and it just basically says that's because crowds are made
Speaker 2: up of similar people. Like usually there's not a lot
Speaker 2: of crowd like mindless, say behavior on an elevator, because
Speaker 2: everybody there didn't come together on the elevator to protest something.
Speaker 2: But if you have a protest, there's way more potential
Speaker 2: for collective mind behavior because there's people who are there
Speaker 2: for the same reason, So they're sharing kind of a
Speaker 2: wavelength already when they get there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're at that concert together, you're there because
Speaker 3: you're you want to see Bob Dylan in person, all right,
Speaker 3: for the same reason.
Speaker 2: Sure, Or you want to hear David Crosby harangue you.
Speaker 5: Oh man, he will too, or he would have he did.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Okay, so that's convergence. There's also group mind
Speaker 2: theory a little on the nose. It's basically saying like,
Speaker 2: you lose your individual identity and it's replaced as a part,
Speaker 2: a cog of this larger group's identity. Yeah, yeah again,
Speaker 2: I guess. Yeah, it's not totally off. Social identity theory
Speaker 2: seems to be the prevalent, dominant view of I guess
Speaker 2: kind of d individuation in crowds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where you just you're acting like everyone else
Speaker 3: is acting because you just want to fit in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't really put it better than that.
Speaker 4: So how do you become a crowd member? There are
Speaker 4: a few key concepts there.
Speaker 2: First, you have to get training, go to school.
Speaker 3: Got to go to crowd school, all right, Uh, And
Speaker 3: the first thing you need in crowd school is a
Speaker 3: lot of people in a very tight spot.
Speaker 4: It's called panic school.
Speaker 3: Feeling right now, by the way, I'm okay, And it's
Speaker 3: weird because I don't have like, what's it called claustrophobia necessarily.
Speaker 3: I think it's more for me, just like I can't
Speaker 3: wait to get out of that crowd because I just
Speaker 3: want to have a little space.
Speaker 5: Maybe I do have a little clusterphobiah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it sounds like it, but I think
Speaker 2: everybody does to a degree.
Speaker 4: It's just I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I've never you know, I can accept hugs.
Speaker 3: And I was never one of those kids like under
Speaker 3: the dog pile that was like freaking out or.
Speaker 4: Anything like that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I did not like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well you have a little claustrophobia, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit. I've kind of outgrown it a lot.
Speaker 2: But yeah, if you put me in like a sewer
Speaker 2: culvert or hearing about like a caving accident, I mean
Speaker 2: I'll start Yeah, I can't handle that.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe you have a fear of dying.
Speaker 2: That could be it.
Speaker 5: That might be what's going on, which is rational.
Speaker 4: But what are we talking about.
Speaker 3: We're talking about the three key concepts that form these
Speaker 3: foundations of collected behavior, and they are d oh Man,
Speaker 3: D individuation, Yeah, emotional contagion, and suggestibility. And that first one,
Speaker 3: D individuation is basically like kind of what you were
Speaker 3: hinting at earlier, is there's this new social identity and
Speaker 3: your individual identity is taking a break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is a good example of how this
Speaker 2: stuff can kind of make sense, but it's also like
Speaker 2: you really just paid attention to the worst part of it.
Speaker 2: And this came from Philip Bombardo. Remember him from the
Speaker 2: Stanford Prison experiment. Oh yeah, that was all about d individuation.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he focused some work on crowds, and essentially
Speaker 2: what he said is that, yeah, you just basically leave
Speaker 2: your own identity at the door. You take on a
Speaker 2: new identity of crowd member, group member, and basically whatever
Speaker 2: the group's up for, e're up for. Two. You feel anonymous,
Speaker 2: you feel unidentified. You also feel connected to those other people,
Speaker 2: and so if those other people start, you know, looting
Speaker 2: or something like that, you would probably never loot by yourself, right,
Speaker 2: But since you're in that group, you've lost your individual
Speaker 2: identity that would prevent you from looting. Now it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I'm part of this group and we're looting,
Speaker 2: so let's get to it.
Speaker 3: I think that's fascinating and I think that is so
Speaker 3: true and happens all the time, and we've seen it
Speaker 3: in all across Like I feel like in recent years,
Speaker 3: especially with various protests and you know, things that people
Speaker 3: might call riots, things that people might call insurrections where
Speaker 3: people that normally wouldn't behave in a certain way, like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I was going down to the Capitol Building to voice
Speaker 3: my opinion about how this country is being run, and
Speaker 3: next thing you know, I'm beating a cop down with
Speaker 3: a flagpole, and that normally I would not do something.
Speaker 2: Like that exactly, And that's a great example of that.
Speaker 2: On the other side of it, you might never dance
Speaker 2: with your shirt out wearing nothing but a loincloth burning
Speaker 2: me yes, But in a different situation, you could be
Speaker 2: having just one of the greatest moments of your life totally.
Speaker 2: And that's not just the ecstasy speaking friend, that is
Speaker 2: you being a part of a crowd and feeling that
Speaker 2: kind of exhilaration of being part connected to something larger
Speaker 2: than yourself. So it's the same thing in a sense.
Speaker 2: You're deindividuated one way or another. It's just how is
Speaker 2: it going? Is it going positive? Is it going negative?
Speaker 2: Or is it even neutral?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is all just very fascinating. The
Speaker 3: second one we mentioned was emotional contagion, and that is
Speaker 3: just the fact that you know, emotions in a crowd
Speaker 3: are heightened anyway if you're there at that concert or
Speaker 3: that protest, you're highly emotional, probably for whatever reason you're there,
Speaker 3: or if your team just won the big game and
Speaker 3: you're leaving in a big crowd, so you're aware of
Speaker 3: the people around you. But that like one person, and
Speaker 3: you've seen it before in any of those circumstances where
Speaker 3: one person again triggers something because they're extra emo, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, everyone rises to meet that level
Speaker 3: of emotion.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One thing I saw, though, I think it's part
Speaker 2: of social identity theory, is that that depends on the
Speaker 2: mood of the group or the norms of the group.
Speaker 2: So if it's like a group that is generally saying like,
Speaker 2: we're a peaceful protest, somebody can come up and throw
Speaker 2: a Molotov cocktail and everybody else in the group's gonna
Speaker 2: look at them like, what the heck are you doing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they will isolate that person, ostracize that person, and continue
Speaker 2: on with their peaceful protests. But if the norm of
Speaker 2: the group is like, yeah, we're being like repressed here
Speaker 2: and somebody throws a Molotov cocktail, there's a good chance
Speaker 2: that that crowd will change its norms to include throwing
Speaker 2: molotov cocktails and more people will join in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you used to hang out in a
Speaker 3: moshpit or two back in the day. I'm sure, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: here and there, the mashpit. I mean, I think they
Speaker 3: could be and they probably have been studied within the
Speaker 3: crowd dynamics because it's sort of just a microcosm. But
Speaker 3: I remember in those days and I wasn't like, oh man,
Speaker 3: I can't wait to get in that mash pit, but
Speaker 3: if one broke out around me, I would find myself
Speaker 3: in it like having a good time, and the same
Speaker 3: thing would happen. I was in moshpits where there was
Speaker 3: one jerk throwing elbows and everyone's like, get out of here, dude.
Speaker 4: And then I've been in others where all of a
Speaker 4: sudden that one dude triggered another dude, and then all
Speaker 4: of a sudden it got.
Speaker 5: A little scary in there. And that's when.
Speaker 4: Chuck took a walk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then also there's there's often that jerk that's like
Speaker 2: not even in the pit. He just pushes people in
Speaker 2: who weren't planning on joining.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that should be a choice.
Speaker 2: That guy needs to soak his head.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I had a quick story here about the first or
Speaker 3: not the first Lola Plusa, the one with the Beastie
Speaker 3: Boys and at Lakewood Amphitheater, big outdoor Amphitheater on the lawn,
Speaker 3: the mash pit behind us.
Speaker 4: I was in this one, but it got so big.
Speaker 3: It was about it big was it was about a
Speaker 3: third of the size of an amphitheater lawn and it
Speaker 3: was swirling in the circle and people started throwing up
Speaker 3: their their cups and stuff, and there the trash around them,
Speaker 3: and that stuff formed a whirlpool, a tunnel of trash. Wow,
Speaker 3: as if a tornado was taking it up.
Speaker 5: That's amazing, or at least that's what I saw.
Speaker 4: That's you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That's a world class mosh pit right there.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 3: I've never seen anything like it. And I've been around
Speaker 3: a lot of big shows like that, and I've never
Speaker 3: seen anything like that.
Speaker 2: That's like that part from American Beauty where the kid
Speaker 2: sees the plastic bag caught up in the little whirlwind.
Speaker 2: It's like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I used to think that was the best movie
Speaker 4: ever hit. I don't think it's aged. Well, not just
Speaker 4: not just because it's spacey. The whole thing is kind
Speaker 4: of corny to me.
Speaker 2: Now when I think about it, Well, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: watch it again then. Yeah, okay, there's one more I
Speaker 2: guess aspect that you mentioned too, which is suggestibility, and
Speaker 2: this is I think another Lebon thing, who, by the way,
Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, is not related to
Speaker 2: Simon Lebon. H Yeah, but Lebon basically was like they're
Speaker 2: de individuated. They are basically capable of anything, and if
Speaker 2: there's like that, you could tell them whatever and they'll
Speaker 2: go do it. This definitely, I mean, just from recent
Speaker 2: experience like this can happen, but it requires typically a
Speaker 2: central leader or or organizer that people are looking to,
Speaker 2: a charismatic speaker, somebody who can actually tap into that
Speaker 2: collective mind and push it one direction or another. That
Speaker 2: is possible, but again that is fairly rare when that
Speaker 2: when something like that happens, but it again, it is possible.
Speaker 2: It does happen sometimes.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I don't think we mentioned earlier. Hitler
Speaker 4: and Mussolini both studied the works of Lebon.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, and I mean like they mobilized it to
Speaker 2: their own ends. They used it to generate nationalism and
Speaker 2: xenophobia and essentially create like their own fascist states. Because
Speaker 2: it does work if you do it right and you
Speaker 2: have a crowd in the right mindset.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's nuts, dude, Should we break or keep going?
Speaker 2: I say we.
Speaker 4: All right, we can break.
Speaker 6: You have my permission, stop you shut.
Speaker 2: So one of the great things Chuck about studying crowds
Speaker 2: is that you you can figure out what makes crowds
Speaker 2: do what, and they have in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: not just how they behave like physics or what the
Speaker 2: psychology is behind crowds, but like what triggers crowds to say,
Speaker 2: change their mood because remember I said, like depending on
Speaker 2: the norms, like they may or may not behave violently
Speaker 2: or unlawfully, and that can change with the same crowd
Speaker 2: depending on the circumstances. And one of the like a
Speaker 2: good example of that is that if you have been
Speaker 2: if you're a law enforcement officer and you're there and
Speaker 2: you basically your whole squad is like it's a protest,
Speaker 2: So of course they're going to turn violent and they're
Speaker 2: going to throw rocks at us and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Just being primed to believe that actually makes it more
Speaker 2: likely that the crowd will behave that way. It's it's
Speaker 2: not like we have it reversed. So like like you said,
Speaker 2: just the presence of a law enforcement like group or
Speaker 2: force in riot gear makes it more likely that a
Speaker 2: crowd will turn violent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, they have this new I don't know
Speaker 3: how widespread it is yet, but one of the newer
Speaker 3: developments in this kind of quote unquote crowd control is
Speaker 3: something called the dialogue team. Yeah, and that's when you
Speaker 3: get your nicest cop I guess, yeah, and make them
Speaker 3: the public facing face of that unit, and they put
Speaker 3: them out in the lead and they communicate their purpose there,
Speaker 3: their presence there, how they'd like things to go, and
Speaker 3: it's and apparently it works a lot better than just
Speaker 3: showing up and standing there, beating that billy club into
Speaker 3: your hand and staring down at people in all your
Speaker 3: heavy gear. Apparently that has a quite a great calming
Speaker 3: effect on crowds and can even see the police presence
Speaker 3: is a little more benevolent and cause the crowd to
Speaker 3: maybe self police a little more.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So the chances of the crowd turning ugly
Speaker 2: is way decreased when you have that kind of that,
Speaker 2: like you said, public facing kind of law enforcement, Like
Speaker 2: you still have the riot gear. You may even still
Speaker 2: have a line of guys with assault rifles with rubber
Speaker 2: bullets and there's like the m wrap like off in
Speaker 2: the distance, but that's not what you have up against
Speaker 2: the crowd. You have friendly officers that are explaining that
Speaker 2: they're there to protect your First Amendment rights but also
Speaker 2: keep you safe. And yeah, like you said, self police
Speaker 2: in getting a crowd to police itself. Yeah, is I mean,
Speaker 2: that's just the pinnacle of crowd control totally. And it
Speaker 2: isn't very widespread here, but it's a model that Europe
Speaker 2: as a whole has adopted since the early two thousands
Speaker 2: of the aughts. Yeah, and so it's starting to spread
Speaker 2: over here, but it feels like it's more being that
Speaker 2: it's being handed over from Europe to the academics in
Speaker 2: America who are trying to give it to law enforcement
Speaker 2: in America to take and run with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the key to any you know, regardless of
Speaker 3: the dialogue team out in front, the key to any
Speaker 3: sort of peaceful situation in a protest and dealing with
Speaker 3: cops do is these cops have to be trained, like
Speaker 3: super trained.
Speaker 4: Training is the.
Speaker 3: Key to every officer interaction that they take. And most
Speaker 3: of these big tragedies that you can point to, and
Speaker 3: not just in protests, but just any kind of these
Speaker 3: crushing tragedies, Yeah, is the result of untrained officers in
Speaker 3: a lot of cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sometimes even the people who are in charge of
Speaker 2: all of the police there might not be trained in
Speaker 2: what they're doing. Like the Sheffield tragedy in I think
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. The police were blamed for that, although
Speaker 2: the police initially blamed soccer hooligans and it was like, no,
Speaker 2: the cops who were in charge of this had no
Speaker 2: reason to be in charge of this. They had no
Speaker 2: training whatsoever. Yea, So that is a huge one for sure.
Speaker 3: A couple of sociologists came along to do a lot
Speaker 3: of the sort of official refutation of Lebon in the
Speaker 3: twentieth century, and it was the Italian guy.
Speaker 4: You mentioned this guy, Henrico.
Speaker 2: I didn't, did I mention an Italian guy?
Speaker 4: I thought you mentioned an Italian guy.
Speaker 3: But regardless whether he's showing up for the first time
Speaker 3: or the second, Okay, A guy named Enrico Quarantelli He
Speaker 3: looked at a lot of emergency evacuations and studied them,
Speaker 3: and he basically came to the conclusion that usually people
Speaker 3: flee from these things, obviously because it's the sensible thing
Speaker 3: to do, but it's not necessarily a panicked, irrational group
Speaker 3: of people. They do so generally order in an orderly fashion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about emergency identity
Speaker 2: because one of the things, one of the ways that
Speaker 2: that crowds kind of create like a different a different
Speaker 2: way of thinking is Let's say you have a group
Speaker 2: of people on a subway, and the subway like it's
Speaker 2: running normally. They are just a group of strangers trying
Speaker 2: not to make eye contact with one another, on their
Speaker 2: way home, on their way to work, on their way wherever.
Speaker 2: They have no affiliation with one another aside from the
Speaker 2: fact that they're currently sharing space with one another. If
Speaker 2: that subway breaks down, those strangers become a group almost
Speaker 2: instantly once they realize, okay, we're stuck. The human tendency
Speaker 2: that recent scholarship has found is to come together as
Speaker 2: a group, help one another, start to actually care what
Speaker 2: happens to every other member of the group, trust one another,
Speaker 2: treat one another with respect, and that that happens in
Speaker 2: disaster after disaster after disaster, or subway breakdown after subway breakdown.
Speaker 2: There was another sociologist I don't have his name, but
Speaker 2: he studied like one hundred and eighty different peacetime disasters
Speaker 2: and basically found, Yeah, there's jerks in every crowd, but
Speaker 2: for the most part, they are the vast majority of
Speaker 2: people act pro socially and positively to come together as
Speaker 2: a group in the face of a disaster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was Charles Fritz and I couldn't help but
Speaker 3: think of Elaine Venice the second you mentioned the subway stopping.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't remember that one.
Speaker 3: Oh it was the great Seinfeld episode where Elaine was
Speaker 3: stuck on a out of work subway malfunctioning subway.
Speaker 4: It was pretty great.
Speaker 3: I had a great experience in New York years ago,
Speaker 3: and I might have told this one before, but where
Speaker 3: there was a guy kind of stomping up and down
Speaker 3: the subway platform saying he was going to shove someone
Speaker 3: onto the oncoming train, and just instinctively, a group of
Speaker 3: twenty New Yorkers and me went and gathered together in
Speaker 3: a group with a mother and her baby at the
Speaker 3: center of that atom.
Speaker 4: Wow, at the nucleus.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't no one said all right, everyone, let's
Speaker 3: get together here. We all just stood together, got just
Speaker 3: wandered closer to one another and probably all making our
Speaker 3: way toward that woman and her baby. And before you
Speaker 3: know it, there was a big group of us standing
Speaker 3: in a circle. And that's the one where I went
Speaker 3: and met the cops upstairs and led them to the guy.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 3: I was pretty obvious who it was, but I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: he's down here, and boy, New York City's finest.
Speaker 4: They acted with intention, that's all I'll all say.
Speaker 2: I see, yeah, so what you just said. That story
Speaker 2: undermines a very famous, misguided idea about crowds, the bystander effect,
Speaker 2: which we talked about at great length in our episode
Speaker 2: on Kitty Jenavsi.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: But one study I saw recently found that they were
Speaker 2: studying all sorts of fights that were caught on like
Speaker 2: security cameras or whatever. Uh huh, and I think ninety
Speaker 2: percent of these fights at least one person intervened. Most
Speaker 2: of the time more than one person intervened, and the
Speaker 2: bystander effect says the more people there are, the less
Speaker 2: likely anyone needs to act to help. They found the
Speaker 2: opposite was true. The more people there were, the more
Speaker 2: people helped intervene in this violent fight. So that whole
Speaker 2: idea that people just don't do that is actually untrue.
Speaker 2: It's based on misreporting by a New York Times article.
Speaker 2: That's right, there are there's evidence that there are other
Speaker 2: reasons people might not necessarily not render aid, but say,
Speaker 2: not speak up or share their opinions because they're in
Speaker 2: a group too. Right.
Speaker 3: Uh. Yeah, that's sort of like if you're in a
Speaker 3: classroom and the teacher asks if anyone has anything else
Speaker 3: to say or whatever, or has any questions, and nobody
Speaker 3: says anything, even though they might have questions.
Speaker 2: I remember doing that.
Speaker 4: Sure it would still do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure I would too in a classroom setting,
Speaker 2: but I would I would just assume like I was
Speaker 2: the only one who did get it, or I and
Speaker 2: probably a lot of other people were just ready to leave.
Speaker 3: Well, in a classroom, I don't think that factors in.
Speaker 3: But as an adult, I think you're right on the money.
Speaker 3: I've been in situations where it's a oh, I don't know.
Speaker 3: If you're in a public meeting for something, or if
Speaker 3: you're on the board of a local garden or whatever and.
Speaker 4: Everything, you can get the sense that everyone wants to
Speaker 4: go home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't want to be that person. That's like,
Speaker 3: I have another point at the end of it.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, there's a difference between asking a question and
Speaker 2: liking to hear yourself talk.
Speaker 4: Well, very very good point.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's called pluralistic ignorance, where you feel like,
Speaker 2: even though your opinions differ, you are making an assumption
Speaker 2: about the rest of the group that you that they
Speaker 2: feel this way. So you don't want to make waves
Speaker 2: when it turns out that most of the group probably
Speaker 2: feels the same way you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I did want to follow up with
Speaker 3: a stat that you found. Yeah, I want to follow
Speaker 3: up with you your information because when you were talking
Speaker 3: about Fritz, I think this idea that you know, if
Speaker 3: you watch the news, you might think every protest leads
Speaker 3: to violence, or you know, the summer of violence with
Speaker 3: George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: or pro Palestinian campus protests. There are stats on this stuff,
Speaker 3: like there's raw numbers and of the five hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty three pro Palestine campus protests between April and April
Speaker 3: eighteenth and May third, twenty twenty four, ninety seven percent
Speaker 3: were what was classified as overwhelmingly peaceful. And the same
Speaker 3: with Black Lives Matter. There were twenty four hundred demonstrations
Speaker 3: after the murder of George Floyd, and I think it
Speaker 3: was ninety three percent of them remained entirely peaceful. They
Speaker 3: were less than two hundred and twenty out of the
Speaker 3: twenty four hundred that had any kind of violence whatsoever.
Speaker 4: Right, So that's good news.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, that's great news. And I think that
Speaker 2: the Black Lives Matter George Floyd protests were one of
Speaker 2: the things that really kind of changed a lot of
Speaker 2: scholarship or gave a lot of weight to some of
Speaker 2: the emerging scholarship that crowds actually aren't bad necessarily and
Speaker 2: they can be beneficial socially too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because they don't.
Speaker 3: The news doesn't cover twenty four hundred pieceful protests, right,
Speaker 3: they cover the ones, you know, And I guess I
Speaker 3: get it because it's the news, And if it's.
Speaker 4: I guess I get it. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to do an episode on how the
Speaker 2: news affects the world and how it has so far,
Speaker 2: because I think it's done a lot of damage.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: There's one other thing too we mentioned, like say, the
Speaker 2: presence of police in riot gear can actually trigger violence
Speaker 2: that otherwise might not have taken place in a crowd.
Speaker 2: That's not the only thing. If there are weapons of
Speaker 2: whoever has the weapons, that can change things. And then
Speaker 2: another really big one that cannot be overlooked is the
Speaker 2: presence of a lot of people on alcohol. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: has caused a lot of riots. It just has Like
Speaker 2: you're not going to set a couch on fire in
Speaker 2: the street normally, but if you're drunk and you're part
Speaker 2: of a crowd that who's basketball team just lost in
Speaker 2: the final four, there's a good chance you're going to
Speaker 2: do something like that. And alcohol fuels a lot of
Speaker 2: the problematic, unlawful crowds that turn ugly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those the It's a lot of times it's the
Speaker 3: winning team and that just it's always very frustrating to
Speaker 3: see the news after a city has won a big,
Speaker 3: important championship. Yeah, important to the fans, And then there's
Speaker 3: a big group of people like I've been among those parties.
Speaker 3: I remember in Athens when the Braves won their first
Speaker 3: World Series back in the day.
Speaker 2: Oh, that was just a great night.
Speaker 3: The streets flooded and it was amazing. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 3: we've seen that same thing. All of a sudden, people
Speaker 3: are flipping over cop cars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's setting them on fire, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm so happy that I'm going to set this car
Speaker 2: on fire.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a shame. It's like ruining it for the best,
Speaker 3: for the rest of us and the best of us.
Speaker 2: I saw that that same kind of thing ruined the
Speaker 2: Keen Pumpkin Festival years back.
Speaker 3: I think we talked about that, did we. I think
Speaker 3: years ago you definitely mentioned that. Otherwise, I don't see
Speaker 3: how it would have known.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember it at all, but I'll go
Speaker 2: with your interpretation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it might have been during our early Pumpkin Chunkin
Speaker 3: coverage days.
Speaker 2: Didn't we do a whole episode on punkin Chunkin?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, we worked for Discovery Channel.
Speaker 2: We sure did. They made it so, yes, you got
Speaker 2: anything else?
Speaker 3: I got nothing else. I thought that was super interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: did you pick that one?
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank Kimberly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thanks Kimberly. But it was interesting, Chuck, and
Speaker 2: thanks for doing that, and I'll thank myself from you
Speaker 2: as well. Okay, since I just thank myself on behalf
Speaker 2: of Chuck, I think it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 5: I was thinking about the way and you diverted that
Speaker 5: to Kimberly.
Speaker 4: Okay, afflicted.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, I was listening to the short stuff about
Speaker 3: color psychology, and I got to say I was a
Speaker 3: little disappointed there was no mention of drunk tank pink.
Speaker 4: Didn't know this. If it's not obvious.
Speaker 3: It gets his name from being the go to color
Speaker 3: of choice for drunk tanks because of the noticeable calming
Speaker 3: effect it has on belligerent people. I was so intrigued
Speaker 3: by this that I painted my bathroom drunk tank pink.
Speaker 3: Is Hannah. Hannah sent in a picture too. I didn't
Speaker 3: ask Hannah why she felt the need to do this,
Speaker 3: but she did it.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: There's a book called Drunk Tank Pink by author Adam
Speaker 3: Alter that dives into the psychology behind it, and I'd
Speaker 3: think you would both find this super interesting.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm sorry we missed that, because that is awesome.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 3: And by the way, Hannah got tickets to our show
Speaker 3: in Akron, Ohio as a birthday present for her partner Awesome,
Speaker 3: who had been listening since he was fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: Wow and no seventy two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, and asked if we could give an
Speaker 3: on stage shout out, and Hannah sadly, we don't do
Speaker 3: that because we get a lot of requests and it's
Speaker 3: no fun sitting around as an audience member for ten
Speaker 3: minutes while we read people's names.
Speaker 4: So we're gonna do it right here.
Speaker 3: Wish a very future happy birthday to Isaac Canise.
Speaker 2: Nice Happy birthday, Isaac.
Speaker 7: That was quite magnanimous, so Chuck, Yeah, because we usually
Speaker 7: don't do it on the episode either, But since Drunk
Speaker 7: Tank Pink was such a great email, Hannah, we want
Speaker 7: to say happy happy birthday to Isaac and we hope
Speaker 7: you both have a great time in Akron.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, we'll see you guys there. Make sure you
Speaker 2: stand up and go drunk Tank Pink in the middle
Speaker 2: of the show.
Speaker 4: Oh no, don't.
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Hannah, you can send
Speaker 2: us an email too. Say whatever you like in it
Speaker 2: and we will love it. Just send it off to
Speaker 2: stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot.
Speaker 4: Com Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
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