Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

Freud, Sigmund 1922. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Boni and Liveright.

In the individual's mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a [|] model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent, and so from the very first Individual Psychology is at the same time Social Psychology as well - in this extended but entirely justifiable sense of the words. (Freud 1922: 1-2)

Are model, object, helper and opponent organized in a logical square? The point is clear enough from Peirce, Mead and others - there is no such thing as an absolute individual, since we minimally acquire our means of social communication from our social surroundings.

['Group' is used throughout this translation as equivalent to the rather more comprehensive German 'Masse'. The author used this latter word to render both McDougall's 'group', and also Le Bon's 'foule', which would more naturally be translated 'crowd' in English. For the sake of uniformity, however, 'group' has been preferred in this case as well, and has been substituted for 'crowd' even in the extracts from the English translation of Le Bon. - Translator.] (Freud 1922: 1; ff)

More reasons to pay closer attention to McDougall's social psychology. Malinowski speaks primarily of "crowds". Personally, I think there's a fine distinction to be drawn between group and crowd; the former seems more organized and the latter more loose.

Now in speaking of Social or Group Psychology it has become usual to leave these relations on one side and to isolate as the subject of [|] inquiry the influencing of an individual by a large number of people simultaneously, people with whom he is connected by something, though otherwise they may in many respects be strangers to him. Group Psychology is therefore concerned with the individual man as a member of a race, of a nation, of a caste, of a profession, of an institution, or as a component part of a crowd of people who have been organised into a group at some particular time for some definite purpose. (Freud 1922: 2-3)

Reminiscent of Ruesch's discussion of cultural messages, which he takes to be anonymous - the receiver cannot identify the original sender (who made a meme, for example?). We live in a society, meaning that we are indirectly influenced by a mass of people whom we do not know perslonally.

When once natural continuity has been severed in this way, it is easy to regard the phenomena that appears under these special conditions as being expressions of a special instinct that is not further reducible, the social instinct ('herd instinct', 'group mind'), which does not come to light in any other situations. (Freud 1922: 3)

Is any instinct further reducible? Bateson's metalogue indicates that "instinct" is just a black box. Though arguably Spencer and others do provide criteria for further dissecting this so-called instinct, even if Malinowski glosses over those aspects without any elaboration.

Our expectation is therefore directed towards two other possibilities: that the social instinct may not be a primitive one and insusceptible of dissection, and that it may be possible to discover the beginnings of its development in a narrower circle, such as that of the family. (Freud 1922: 3)

So much for the social instinct being the most primitive one, as Malinowski implies.

Let us make the matter clear once again. If a Psychology, concerned with exploring the predispositions, the instincts, the motives and the aims of an individual man down to his actions and his relations with those who are nearest to him, had completely achieved its task, and had cleared up the whole of these matters with their inter-connections, it would then suddenly find itself confronted by a new task which would like before it unachieved. (Freud 1922: 5)

Freud seems to operate with fourfold distinctions (here: predispositions, instincts, motives and aims; above: model, object, helper and opponent).

It would be obliged to explain the surprising fact that under a certain condition this individual whom it had come to understand thought, felt, and acted in quite a different way from what would have been expected. (Freud 1922: 6)

Alas, the triad makes an early appearance.

And this condition is his insertion into a collection of people which has acquired the characteristic of a 'psychological group'. What, then, is a 'group'? How does it acquire the capacity for exercising such a decisive influence over the mental life of the individual? And what is the nature of the mental change which it forces upon the individual? (Freud 1922: 6)

A possibility for relating the Malinowskian crowd with Jakobson's "psychological connection".

I will now let Le Bon speak for himself. He says: 'The most striking peculiarity presented by a psychological group is the following. Whoever be the individuals that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a group puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind which makes [|] them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation. There are certain ideas and feelings which do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into acts except in the case of individuals forming a group. The psychological group is a provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements, which for a moment are combined, exactly as the cells which constitute a living body form by their reunion a new being which displays characteristics very different from those possessed by each of the cells singly.' (p. 29.) (Freud 1922: 6-7)

Ideas and feelings are transformed into actions. Compare this dynamic with that of Spencer. Le Bon's The Crowd (1896). Also, compare "a provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements" with other versions of collective self (e.g. Durkheim, Lotman, etc.).

If the individuals in the group are combined into a unity, there must surely be something to unite them, and this bond might be precisely the thing that is characteristic of a group<. (Freud 1922: 7)

In Malinowski's case this characteristic appears to be common language. Though, admittedly, copresence appears to be more fundamental.

'The first is that the individual forming part of a group acquires, solely from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint. He will be the less disposed to check himself from the consideration that, a group being anonymous, and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely.' (p. 33.) (Freud 1922: 9)

The exact opposite of Spencer's version, where social union acts as a check upon impulsiveness.

The feelings of a group are always very simple and very exaggerated. So that a group knows neither doubt nor uncertainty. (Freud 1922: 15)

Dubious to the highest degree. Some groups are petrified to immobility due to doubt and uncertainty.

Inclined as it itself is to all extremes, a group can only be excited by an excessive stimulus. Anyone who wishes to produce an effect upon it needs no logical adjustment in his arguments; he must paint [|] in the most forcible colours, he must exaggerate, and he must repeat the same thing again and again. (Freud 1922: 16-17)

A manual for Hitler.

Some other features in Le Bon's description show in a clear light how well justified is the identification of the group mind with the mind of primitive people. In groups the most contradictory ideas can exist side by side and tolerate each other, without any conflict arising from the logical contradiction between them. But this is also the case in the unconscious mental life of individuals, of children and of neurotics, as psycho-analysis has long pointed out. (Freud 1922: 18)

An invaluable suggestion for understanding Malinowski's views of "primitive mentality".

Moreover, he ascribes both to the ideas and to the leaders a mysterious and irresistible power, which he calls 'prestige'. Prestige is a sort of domination exercised over us by an individual, a work or an idea. It entirely paralyses our critical faculty, and fills us with astonishment and respect. It would seem to arouse a feeling like that a fascination in hypnosis (p. 148). He distinguishes between acquired or artificial and personal prestige. The former is attached to persons in virtue of their name, fortune and reputation, and to opinions, works of art, etc., in virtue of tradition. Since in every case it harks back to [|] the past, it cannot be of much help to us in understanding this puzzling influence. Personal prestige is attached to a few people, who become leaders by means of it, and it has the effect of making everything obey them as though by the operation of some magnetic magic. All prestige, however, is also dependent upon success, and is lost in the event of failure (p. 159). (Freud 1922: 21-22)

Somewhat unclear of a distinction. Name, fortune and reputation = fama, renown.

The two theses which comprise the most important of Le Bon's opinions, those touching upon the collective inhibition of intellectual functioning and the heightening of affectivity in groups, [|] had been formulated shortly before by Sighele. At bottom, all that is left over as being peculiar to Le Bon are the two notions of the unconscious and of the comparison with the mental life of primitive people, and even these had naturally often been alluded to before him. (Freud 1922: 23-24)

Both theses are operative in Malinowski's phatic communion. The unconscious aspect is curiously absent but the comparison with primitive mentality takes a prominent place.

As regards intellectual work it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual, working in solitude. But even the group mind is capable of genius in intellectual creation, as is shown above all by language itself, as well as by folk-song, folk-lore and the like. It remains an open question, moreover, how much the individual thinker or writer owes to the stimulation of the group in which he lives, or whether he does more than perfect a mental work in which the others have had a simultaneous share. (Freud 1922: 25)

Inching towards Lotman's "collective self" and its creative function (regarding culture and language).

Before the members of a random crowd of people can constitute something in the nature of a group in the psychological sense of the word, a condition has to be fulfilled; these individuals must have something to be fulfilled; these individuals must have something in common with one another, a common interest in [|] an object, a similar emotional bias in some situation or other, and ('consequently', I should like to interpolate) 'some degree of reciprocal influence' (p. 23). The higher the degree of 'this mental homogeneity', the more readily do the individuals form a psychological group, and the more striking are the manifestations of a group mind. (Freud 1922: 26-27)

An opening for communization. The distincton between a random crowd and an organized group appears comparable to Berkley's natural and political society.

The manner in which individuals are thus carried away by a common impulse is explained by McDougall by means of what he calls the 'principle of direct induction of emotion by way of the primitive sympathetic response' (p. 25), that is, by means of the emotional contagion with which we are already familiar. The fact is that the perception of the signs of an emotional state is calculated automatically to arouse the same emotion in the person who perceives them. The greater the number of people in whom the same emotion can [|] be simultaneously observed, the stronger does this automatic compulsion grow. The individual loses his power of criticism, and lets himself slip into the same emotion. (Freud 1922: 27-28)

The cumulative effect of communization. This primitive sympathetic response requires elaboration (possibly from Adam Smith), and I'm surprised to see "emotional contagion", which I took to be a more modern term, so early.

There is no doubt that something exists in us which, when we become aware of signs of an emotion in someone else, tends to make us fall into the same emotion; but how often do we not successfully oppose it, resist the emotion, and react in quite an opposite way? (Freud 1922: 35)

We moderns often gloss this with "mirror neurons".

We will try our fortune, then, with the supposition that love relationships (or, to use a more neutral expression, emotional ties) also constitute the essence of the group mind. Let us remember that the authorities make no mention of any such relations. What would correspond to them is evidently concealed behind the shelter, the screen, of suggestion. (Freud 1922: 40)

Hence the difficult matter of the "bonds of union".

The evidence of psycho-analysis shows that almost every intimate emotional relation between two people which lasts for some time - marriage, friendship, the relations between parents and children - leaves a sediment of feelings of aversion and hostility, which have first to be eliminated by repression. (Freud 1922: 54)

Noted. But how is this explained?

In the undisguised antipathies and aversions which people feel towards strangers with whom they have to do we may recognize the expression of self-love - of narcissism. This self-love works for the self-assertion of the individual, and behaves as though the occurrence of any divergence from his own particular [|] lines of development involved a criticism of them and a demand for their alteration. (Freud 1922: 55-56)

Exactly Zygmunt Bauman's view of the stranger in Culture as Praxis (1973).

If therefore in groups narcissistic self-love is subject to limitations which do not operate outside them, that is cogent evidence that the essence of a group formation consists in a new kind of libidinal ties among the members of the group. (Freud 1922: 58)

Or, in another nomenclature, ties of sentiments.

We already begin to divine that the mutual tie between members of a group is in the nature of an identification of this kind, based upon an important emotional common quality; and we may suspect that this common quality lies in the nature of the tie with the leader. Another suspicion may tell us that we are far from having exhausted the problem of identification, and that we are faced by the process which psychology calls 'empathy [Einfühlung]' and which plays the largest part in our understanding of what in inherently foreign to our ego in other people. But we shall here limit ourselves to the immediate emotional effects of identification, and shall leave on one side its significance for our intellectual life. (Freud 1922: 66)

Is empathy a process or a state? I also sense that Freud is employing a reversal: instead of understanding what we have in common with other people we're supposed to become conscious, in empathy, of what is inherently foreign in them.

It might be said that the intense emotional ties which we observe in groups are quite sufficient to explain one of their characteristics - the lack of independence and initiative in their members, the similarity in the reactions of all of them, their reduction, so to speak, to the level of group individuals. But if we look at it as a whole, a group shows us more than this. Some of its features - the weakness of intellectual ability, the lack of emotional restraint, the incapacity for moderation and delay, the inclination to exceed every limit in the expression of emotion and to work [|] it off completely in the form of action - these and similar features, which we find so impressively described in Le Bon, show an unmistakable picture of a regression of mental activity to an earlier stage such as we are not surprised to find among savages or children. A regression of this sort is in particular an essential characteristic of common groups, while, as we have heard, in organized an artificial groups it can to a large extent be checked. (Freud 1922: 81-82)

Again, very much opposed to the picture presented by Spencer and others. It also doesn't appear to jibe with common experience.

We are reminded of how many of these phenomena of dependence are part of the normal constitution of human society, of how little originality and personal courage are to be found in it, of how much every individual is ruled by those attitudes of the group mind which exhibit themselves in such forms as racial characteristics, class prejudices, public opinion, etc.. (Freud 1922: 82)

Another possibility for why social conversation is essentially meaningless, or, at the very least, devoid of novelty.

Trotter derives the mental phenomena that are described as occurring in groups from a herd instinct ('gregariousness'), which is innate in human beings just as in other species of animals. Biologically this gregariousness is an analogy to multicellularity and as it were a continuation of it. (Freud 1922: 83)

It is starting to look like Trotter is the "sociological" work Malinowski meant, not this one. It would also make more sense chronologically, as Trotter's book was published in 1916, right when Malinowski did his ethnographic work.

What appears later on in society in the shape of Gemeingeist, esprit de corps, 'group spirit', etc., does not belie its derivation from what was originally [|] envy. No one must want to put himself forward, every one must be the same and have the same. Social justice means that we deny ourselves many things so that others may have to do without them as well, or, what is the same thing, may not be able to ask for them. This demand for equality is the root of social conscience and the sense of duty. (Freud 1922: 87-88)

A term that sometimes makes its appearance in phatic discourse but is not further examined.

Thus social feeling is based upon the reversal of what was first a hostile feeling into a positively-toned tie of the nature of an identification. So far as we have hithero been able to follow the course of events, this reversal appears to be effected under the influence of a common tender tie with a person outside the group. (Freud 1922: 88)

Reversalism.

Each individual therefore has a share in numerous group minds - those of his race, of his class, of his creed, of his nationality, etc. - and he can also raise himself above them to the extent of having a scrap of independence and originality. Such stable and lasting group formations, with their uniform and constant effects, are less striking to an observer that the rapidly formed and transient groups from which Le Bon has made his brilliant psychological character sketch of the group mind. (Freud 1922: 101)

These group minds require further analysis.