The law of mental unity. When people gather into a psychological crowd, they form a kind of “collective mind” that makes them feel, think, and act quite differently than they would in isolation. A crowd is not simply the sum of its members—it’s a new entity with its own character.
The disappearance of the conscious personality. In a crowd, the individual’s sense of separate identity dissolves. The rational, deliberate self recedes, and the unconscious takes over. This is why Le Bon says a person “descends several rungs on the ladder of civilization” in a crowd.
Anonymity and the loss of responsibility. Because the crowd is numerically strong and unnamed, the individual feels a sense of invincible power and sheds the personal responsibility that normally restrains behavior. Actions no one would take alone become possible.
Contagion. Sentiments, emotions, and acts spread through a crowd almost like a disease—each person imitates the others, and feelings amplify as they circulate. The individual readily sacrifices personal interest to the collective impulse.
Suggestibility. This is the deepest cause for Le Bon. The crowd enters a near-hypnotic state in which members become highly open to suggestion, functioning almost as automatons directed by whoever or whatever plants an idea. Contagion is really a consequence of this suggestibility.
Impulsiveness and instability. Crowds are slaves of the impulse of the moment—irritable, changeable, incapable of sustained will or premeditation. They can swing from savagery to heroism and back with startling speed.
Credulity and thinking in images. Crowds don’t reason; they think in vivid images that succeed one another without logical connection. They’re extraordinarily credulous, prone to illusions, and treat the imagined as real. What strikes the imagination governs them.
Exaggeration and simplicity of sentiment. A crowd’s emotions are always extreme and one-sided—doubt and nuance vanish. A suspicion becomes incontestable certainty; a dislike becomes ferocious hatred.
Intolerance, authoritarianism, and conservatism. Crowds respect only force, not kindness, which they read as weakness. They are dictatorial and intolerant toward dissent, and despite occasional revolutionary outbursts, fundamentally conservative in their deep attachment to tradition.
The role of leaders and their means of persuasion. Crowds crave a leader, and leaders rule through prestige rather than argument. Their three great tools are affirmation (bold, unproven assertion), repetition (until the claim lodges in the unconscious), and contagion (until it spreads into general opinion).