Mob Mentality In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Improved Essays
“When large enough groups of people gather, things will get accomplished, good or bad.” stated Marc Bousquet of Emory University. This is the state of mob mentality, the individual’s subconscious “decision” to follow the crowd’s movements sometimes not even knowing (whether the effects will be good or bad) (the effects). Understanding how the mob mentality works, and how it can affect individuals as well as groups, can help us better understand the situations and the characters’ motives in The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
There are many different causes and situations in which mob mentality can affect individuals. Although there are certain types of personalities in which some people are more gullible, it usually only takes 5 out of 100 people
…show more content…
So how can we determine the line that separates the “unruly mobs” from the “wisdom of groups”? Mobs are more likely to turn violent when the group is large, and the members are able to remain anonymous. However in certain situations, the human’s natural tendency to survive can also lead to violence within, and/or out of the groups. For example, with the lack of resources, people will be willing to fight in order to live. Despite the individual personalities, it is in the human’s reflexes to fight for survival. Group violence can especially become dangerous when one emotionally challenges another. Stephen Reicher, a psychologist at the University of St Andrews mentioned that. “If you believe all crowds are irrational, and that even rational people are liable to be dangerous in them, then you'll treat them accordingly, often harshly, and stop people doing things they have a right to do. And that can lead to violence." This can prove how the surrounding people can affect the groups and push them into violence by arousing their …show more content…
A simple example of this can be shown at a concert. At a concert, since the entire crowd is singing along, dancing, and screaming, it becomes more “acceptable” for individuals to do so too. However, if someone were to do that alone at a subway station, people would most likely call the police to report a mental person straying in public. Such groups, as in a concert, can stir an emotional excitement that can lead people into doing things they would normally not do alone. This type of excitement can sometimes become too extreme and cause violent behavior. Once individuals form a group, their minds are already set into “mob mentality”. This means that whatever their actions are, they consider it the group’s actions not their own. This kind of mentality can cause lack of responsibility in one’s own actions and cause them to behave with less thought. Especially in big crowds, when individuals are mostly anonymous, people tend to act more viciously because they know that their actions cannot be traced back to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Mob mentality is a powerful thing that can take over a group of people to do something they wouldn’t usually do. In todays day an age some examples are like the types of music people listen to, or if a lot of people are playing a certain sport, you might join because your friends are doing it (Smith). Our countries past also has parts of mob mentality; one example is when one whole county rose up and broke into a jail house and took two black men, beat them then lynched them for a crime that wasn’t even proven guilty (“Strange Fruit: Anniversary”) In the photo of the two men hanging the mob below them almost seemed casual, they were smiling, pointing and some were even laughing (Beitler). (Holiday)…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mob Hysteria Analysis

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Mob Hysteria is a phenomenon that researchers have attempted to understand the reason why individuals act…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For example, the Holocaust, an event that resulted in the deaths of millions of Jews, is the responsibility of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Also, the September 11th attacks were not only committed by Osama bin Laden, but by his al-Qaeda organization as well. Since the masterminds of these acts had help from many other people, they were able to take the lives of more people than any sole human being. In addition, personal experience has shown that people tend to act negatively in order to fit in when they are around their friends. It is often easy to influence others to act negatively, and it is even easier to fall into the trap of mob mentality. The issue of mob mentality is often associated with immoral behaviors such as rape and beatings.…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Mob Mentality is based on the fact that there is power in numbers, and when one person enables another into a specific belief or mind set, there is an obvious ripple effect. When challenging a group as an individual, it is hard to be taken seriously as when going against a group as there is the looming dread of belittlement. The possibility that because an opinion differs from the rest, it is seen as inherently incorrect and that there was something wrong with them for thinking that way. Mob Mentality plagues the stories The Lottery, All Summer in a Day, and Harrison Bergeron. History has many examples of Mob Mentality and its effects on not only the direct society but also the world around it, and these short stories follow a similar premise.…

    • 1780 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To me, a mob mentality describes how people who are in a large group can make unusual decisions or act in ways that they would not normally act because they are in a large group of people. Although we may try to be individualistic and stand for our beliefs, it is human nature for most of us to tend to follow the behaviors of others. Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" highlights the effects of a mob mentality; including making usually unacceptable behaviors acceptable, people feeling less responsible for their actions, and those involved conforming to society and losing their individuality. "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson shows the effects of a mob mentality, including making people feel less responsible for their actions. When…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In seventeenth century Salem, Massachusetts, the concept of a theocracy ran the community. Salem’s interpretation of a theocracy was to Combine [the] state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies (Miller 7). The Puritans goal of the theocracy was to “keep the community together and prevent any kind of disunity”, but on the other hand, the theocracy did the complete opposite.…

    • 1172 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Religion, repression, and revenge all play vital roles in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, by motivating the citizens’ accusations, rebellion, and mass hysteria. Without these elements, the witch trials would not have taken place. The religion of the Puritans, and their theocratic society caused the witch trials to worsen, citizens to make drastic choices, and fed the spread of mass hysteria throughout Salem. Since no separation between church and state existed, the people were forced to live a godly life in order to keep from breaking the law.…

    • 1091 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The article “Good people do Bad Things” was written by Anne Trafton. This article explains that people don’t always act rationally when they’re in group settings rather than alone. Anne emphasizes that the brain acts differently because it is stuck in a “mob mentality”. She started studying this affect after she found herself on the other side of a hostile situation versus a large crowd. The author’s strategies are very effective as far as I can see; most all theories are backed by facts and statistics.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mob mentality is a dangerous characteristic of a person’s attitude. When in a group people often experience “deindividuation, or a loss of self-awareness” causing “the provocation of behaviors that a person would not typically engage in if alone” (Avant). These behaviors can include poor decision making processes and engaging in the defamation of one’s character. It is important that people stand up to this mentality to stop it before extensive damage can be done. This is clearly defined in The Crucible by Arthur Miller.…

    • 1054 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    To begin, mob mentality refers “to unique behavioral characteristics that emerge when people are in large groups” (Smith). Mob mentality is also considered “the sense of confusion or even panic that can exist in a large group” (Smith). This idea can be shown in current examples such as the instance that many people will go to an already-crowded restaurant for the reason that they figure the restaurant must be serving good food, or it would not be nearly as busy (Smith). Mob mentality has also been a part of events in the past. For example, on one night in a town in Indiana, a few black men were going to be lynched.…

    • 2600 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    The colloquial saying, ‘a group has a mind of its own’ describes this well — a deindividualized person is more likely to be impulsive, irrational, emotional, and destructive. This clearly happened with thousands of protesters in Ferguson. Protests often started out peaceful and organized, but as a few protestors slowly started to become violent, others followed in their footsteps. Tory Higgins of Columbia University says that social psychology clearly backs up what happened in Ferguson — when people in a crowd see others acting a particular way, they are more likely to act that way as well. Looting, as an example, is more likely be done in groups ans also makes people…

    • 1657 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mob mentality is a term used to describe the unique behavioral characteristics that emerge when people are in large groups (Smith 1). These actions can be violent, and it is not always clear what the motivation is at the time of execution. An event that involved a mob was the lynching that occurred on August 6, 1930. People who were at the lynching recall not completely know what was happening at the time of the lynching; though it was evident something was wrong (“Strange Fruit: Anniversary of a Lynching”). In the photograph that was taken at the time of the lynching, there were a large number of people who did not seem to be very concerned that there are two people hanging dead from a tree (Beitler).…

    • 1098 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The photo shows the mob was all white and the expressions on the people in the photo depict a sense of pride. They looked upon what they had done as a good deed, they were proud of their actions (Beitler). This depicts how white people thought they were causing no harm to society, since they viewed black citizens to be inadequate members of society. Mob mentality stems from a commonly held belief that is taken to exponential levels and is used to justify actions, such as the saying: if a restaurant is packed, then you can assume it will be good. This mentality causes large groups to gather for a common cause and this frequently leads to violence and different behaviors stemming from violence (Smith).…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, the author perfectly portrays the effectiveness of conformity and individualism through the use of the character’s actions and the consequences that those who do not conform face. For instance, the readers are introduced to John Proctor , the poster child in this play for ‘fighting the system’. Miller uses this character primarily, along with stage directions, dialogue, and other characters, to form his idea of conformity and individualism, and how dangerous it is to stand up in a community where everyone seems to be sitting down. In the beginning of the play, John Proctor is introduced as a prideful man who is visibly against the agenda that Reverend Parris is pushing in the church.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Philip Zimbardo’s TEDTalk “The Psychology of Evil” discusses the line that separates good from evil, and how any human, placed under the right circumstances, can be swayed to either side of that line. Zimbardo begins his talk by discussing the century old question “What makes people go wrong?”. While some people may argue that humans are born either intrinsically good or evil, Zimbardo refutes this claim stating how, as a young boy growing up in the Bronx, he personally witnessed many of his friends cross the line from good to evil. Zimbardo calls this phenomenon the “Lucifer Effect” after the biblical story of the fallen angel Lucifer, once God’s favorite angel who falls from grace to eventually become Satan, epitome of all evil. Zimbardo’s…

    • 1635 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays