Our own among our own: how does the group change us?

You have been waiting for the weekend so that you can finally relax after a hard week. But it’s already two in the morning, and teenagers are having fun under your window. Music, loud voices, giggling girls being teased by their buddies. The only thing missing is firecrackers… Of course, at the age of 17 people are not serious, especially on Saturday evening. You cover your head with a blanket, and your brain, in order to pass the time of insomnia, indulges in reasoning. He is interested in the concept of collective intelligence, according to which the group increases the chances of each of us to show our talents. Yes, it sounds like a mockery for your unfortunate brain, exhausted by screams under the window …

“Collective mind” (from the English hive mind, lit. “mind of the hive”) is a concept that was born at the end of the twentieth century from observations of the behavior of ants and bees. Like humans, these insects rely on teamwork to survive. Sociologists then studied the influence of the group on the decision-making process. Today, this concept is developing under the influence of new technologies, the Internet and social networks. After this idea caught on, it became widely used by coaches, managers, and human resource professionals. Increasingly, companies are organizing all sorts of trainings, video conferences, brainstorming sessions, and open-plan offices are appearing everywhere. It is assumed that this format is optimal for work: you need to communicate, keep in touch with each other in order to be smarter, more efficient, more productive.

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Timid at a disadvantage?

Are we really more creative when there are many of us? This seems to be the case when it comes to, for example, a group of friends who together organize a startup. But for employees, who are the majority among us, the answer to this question is less obvious. “I’m fed up with meetings where everyone is allowed to have their say, but no one listens to each other,” complains Lilia, 38, a bank employee. – Faced with a lot of other people’s opinions, I lose the thread of my thoughts and cannot get it to be listened to. But the liveliest are not necessarily the smartest, so mediocrity reigns in the end.”

Indeed, research confirms that the collective suppresses the creativity and intellectual abilities of those of us who do not feel free in it. Psychologists, using modern scanning tools, observed the brain activity of volunteers who worked in a group (1). It turned out that the areas of the brain responsible for thinking and solving problems – which, in fact, is required of us at work – were less active in those who are insecure, do not like to insist on their own, avoid public speaking and prefer any society communication with yourself. This means that loners, introverts, and people with low self-esteem are at a disadvantage where the enterprise values ​​group work more. However, novelists, poets, thinkers and inventors have always known that creativity requires peace and solitude.

Another difficulty is that in an open space office we try to move less (so as not to interfere with others), and this prevents us from thinking freely (2). Our intellect and memory work more efficiently when the body is not constrained and lives in its own rhythm.

The crowd is too sentimental

Not only group work, but also political engagement can reduce our intelligence. Yale University social psychologist Dan Kahan believes that when it comes to politics, emotions take precedence over reason. We listen only to those facts and opinions that confirm our own ideas and the position of our like-minded people. Sometimes as if against will. “My large family is quite politicized, and since the 1990s we have always voted for the Yabloko party, this is already a tradition,” admits Alexandra, 50, a university lecturer. – I see that my hopes are not justified every time, but this is stronger than me, this is a reflex. I can’t do otherwise.” In other words, under the influence of the group to which we belong, we easily deny reality and silence our reason.

Dan Kahan gives an interesting example. According to him, a member of the US Republican Party is statistically more likely to belong to the number of “climate skeptics” (that is, those who refuse to believe in global warming). Simply because that is the position of the majority of Republicans. Perhaps this applies to the least educated members of the party, who are unfamiliar with reliable scientific information or are unable to analyze it? Not at all – having a university degree makes it more likely that a Republican will turn out to be … a “climate skeptic.”

Alas, any group or crowd, especially when it has thousands or millions of people, is easily infected by emotions and stops listening to reason. Another sociologist Gustave Le Bon, who studied the psychology of the masses at the end of the 3th century, noted that in the crowd the conscious personality disappears (4). Sigmund Freud was also categorical: “It seems that it is enough for a large mass, a huge multitude of people to be together for all the moral achievements of its constituent individuals to immediately dissipate, and in their place only the most primitive, most ancient, most crude psychological attitudes remain” (XNUMX). In other words, the crowd feeds on the “I” of each person, swallows it and digests it. From this cannibal feast, the soul of the crowd is born, dangerous for individual human souls, because it forces them to regress, activating the lower, more primitive layers of the psyche. Absorbed by collective emotions, we listen only to our “Super-I”: we are “like everyone else” and therefore we are no longer responsible for anything, everything is allowed to us. Suffice it to recall the atrocities of football fans. It is not sport that turns us into wild animals, but the group! And when, after nightly fights on the streets, everyone returns home to their “I”, a hangover inevitably sets in: we experience an acute sense of shame, we are tormented by remorse.

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In organized collectives, armies, religious groups, according to Freud, an eclipse of reason also quickly sets in. We all feel like brothers and at the same time we are captured by collective fantasies, we refuse our own will. Being under the hypnotic influence of our love for the leader, we are ready for anything for him. The concepts of good and evil cease to exist, the critical mind falls silent. This is precisely the mechanism that explains how Germany, a country that gave birth to great philosophers, musicians and writers, plunged into Nazi madness.

We can also remember our Soviet past, when the crowds demanded to shoot “enemies of the people” like mad dogs, and well-known artists and scientists signed collective public denunciations against their colleagues. Neither education nor a high level of culture, unfortunately, even today guarantees that a person will not fall into the power of the mob.

Fortunately, communities of people can also generate great values. Peoples show their best features through language, culture, customs and traditions. After all, individual intelligence also cannot arise from nowhere. But it is important to think independently, to go against general opinions, because only thinking “against the current” is real thinking, thought in the noble sense of the word. However, it must be admitted that there are very few people among us who are capable of formulating truly original judgments.

Having gathered in a group, we easily lose independence of judgment and become stupid. To prevent this from happening, the team must have a goal, a sincere desire to achieve something, to show will. Nothing to do with the dullness and herd instinct of the crowd! The creative energy of the group works where we complement and appreciate each other’s skills and abilities. When we cooperate and realize our abilities within the group, when our voice is not drowned out by the noise of the crowd, then the collective mind appears.

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Mutual Aid is also Therapy

Sometimes the group helps develop those who are lagging behind. “This is exactly what happens in the choir,” explains Anastasia, 37, an editor. She sings every Friday night in the choir of a small church. – The most beautiful voices “pull up” less bright singers. If alone with himself a person is a little out of tune, he orients himself in singing to the voice of the best.

For psychotherapy, as well as for personal development, the role of the team is even more important. “My work with a psychotherapist became stagnant, I began to feel like I was wasting time,” admits 39-year-old Sophia, a designer. – I read books on psychology, personal growth, trying to understand myself. But nothing worked. Then, on the advice of a colleague, I signed up for a two-day group seminar to discover the “shadow part of myself.” I went there with some prejudice, but it dissipated. Other people’s perspectives, their empathy, their nonjudgmental attention… This experience really changed something in me. In the next session, the therapist asked me how I got so far over the weekend. Through this group work, I went from feeling like an idiot in 48 hours to believing I had more talent than I thought.”

1. The results of the study are published on the website of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, vtc.vt.edu

2. For more information, see the website of the Institute. Max Planck, mpg.de/institutes

3. G. Lebon “Psychology of peoples and masses” (Socium, 2014).

4. Freud “Psychology of the Masses and the Analysis of the Human Self” (Psychological Technologies, 2014).