Siegel biography

People of the good and passive passiveness of S. Siegel believed that the crowd was mainly evil and active people. Anger is a much more active quality than good nature, he noted. Sigel gave vivid examples of cruel actions committed by the crowd, and looked for socio-psychological mechanisms leading it to crimes. The number of people around them has a huge impact on human behavior.

Siegel formulated the psychological law: “The intensity of the mental motion increases directly in proportion to the number of persons sharing this movement at the same time and in the same place,” p. Siegel called the five causes of crimes of the crowd: the fussing of members of the crowd is suggested. The influence of numbers, as a result of which the intensity of negative emotions is growing.

The number gives people a sense of sudden and extraordinary power. The number provides anonymity of the crime. Moral intoxication, which is the result of the victory of instincts over the centuries -old work of the education of willpower. Awakening of the instinct of murder. The crowd is pushed into the crime of a waking wild instinct, but at the same time, each person vaguely feels that he is committing some unusual act.

Siegel gave many examples of brutal murders, in particular: “In the Abbe, an old Soldate named Damen, the saber plunged the saber into the side of the assistant General de Lalen, plunged his hand into the hole, pulled it out to his mouth and began to tear it. Blood, says an eyewitness, flowed on his lips, forming something like a mustache. In Forsa, Madame Lambal was torn to pieces.

I cannot describe what the hairdresser Charlot did her with his head. I can only say that the other, from Saint-Antoine Street, carried her heart and bit his teeth, ”p. A special composition of the crowd. The results of the historical and sociological study of Siegel show that people of special categories form the crowd. These include, firstly, people who are intoxicated.

Secondly, mentally ill people released by a revolutionary crowd of hospitals. They could completely freely indulge in madness in the squares and streets. Thirdly, adventurers, bandits, robbers, people with a tarnished reputation, armed with all types of weapons. They were the initiators and culprits of any massacre. This bloody heroine led the crowd to storm a wheelchair house and the capture of the Bastille ”, p.

Arabs call this behavior of the crowd "powder madness." This is the madness that returned to man his animals instincts. This is a rabies of an understanding person, the natural consequence of intoxication with blood and shots, screams and wine. Let us ask ourselves: what psychological mechanisms lead to "rabies of nothing to understand a person"? Siegelle gave the following example: “During the shooting of hostages, one of the communities grabbed each priest across the body and threw it through the wall.

The last pop resisted and fell, dragging the federalist. The impatient killers did not wait and killed their comrade as quickly as the priest, ”p. Why couldn't the Kommunars quickly distinguish their comrade from the enemy? In this case, we can explain the actions of people with the laws of the functioning of cognitive processes: the effect of social facilitation is increasing many times in the crowd.

The surrounding people for a person are the most significant incentive of all others. The presence of people creates neuropsychic excitement in the cerebral cortex and enhances the dominant reaction. Increased social excitement contributes to a dominant reaction, regardless of whether it is correct or not. With a large number of incentives, our consciousness makes mistakes in distinguishing incentives.

Different criteria for identifying objects of the world weaken, identification arises on the similarity of signs, and not by their difference. This mechanism of work of consciousness V. Allahverdov calls the identification of similarity. Many other incentives that become indistinguishable to these criteria should also be identified. Consciousness, in other words, should identify objects similar in some respect.

A confusion of similar incentives is possible only because they are identified as a result of the work of consciousness ”3, p. In the above example, Kommunars identified the fallen comrade as a victim of the execution. The dominant reaction, their only action at the moment was the execution. They instantly shot their comrade, taking him for the enemy. The mechanism of work of consciousness, designated as identification by similarity, allows us to understand the decisive role of imitation as the main type of human behavior in the crowd.

Consciousness distinguishes only similar behavioral features and, accordingly, automatically forces many people to be like each other in the manner of behavior gestures, movements, exclamations, mood.Among the huge number of incentives, many people any differences in behavior are interpreted by consciousness as alien, which should not be paid attention to, they can be bypassed, or even as hostile, which should be destroyed, since they do not meet the criteria for the identity of signs.

Siegel was worried about the answer to a purely legal question: what is the measure of responsibility for crimes committed by a person in an angry crowd? He calls the three principles of responsibility: the principle of collective irresponsibility. In Roman criminal law, according to Tacitus, there was a principle: "Where there are many guilty ones, no one should punish anyone." But Siegel does not agree with this principle.

He was looking for an answer to his question in studying the composition of the crowd and socio-psychological qualities of its participants. The principle of collective responsibility. In ancient times, Siegel noted, collective responsibility was the only form of responsibility. Even when the crime was committed by one person, his family, a clan, and a tribe were involved with him.

Ancient laws extended punishment to his wife, children, brothers, and parents of the criminal. The personality was only part of the team. It was considered absurd to punish only one part, and not the whole whole. In all European states, families of political criminals were expelled from their homeland.

The states of the ancient East were put on everyone, starting from the wife and children of the criminal, the same punishment as on himself. In Egypt, the whole family of the conspirator was sentenced to death. The principle of individual responsibility. Nowadays, the practice of collective responsibility has been terminated. The law individualized responsibility. The absurd idea of ​​collective responsibility disappeared, but another idea took its place.

Here, Siegel had in mind the responsibility attributed to the social environment. Thus, Siegel was the first to discover the influence of situational factors. The only defendant, according to Siegel, should be an individual. A means to determine the measure of responsibility is his exposure to suggestion. If, with hypnotic suggestion, the strongest and most powerful of all suggestions, it is impossible to achieve the complete destruction of human individuality, but only one weakening, then on a much larger reason we can say that this personality will remain in a state of wakefulness, even if the suggestion reached the highest degree, such as the crowd.

A crime committed by an individual among an angry crowd will always have part of his motives in his physiological and psychological organization. Therefore, the individual will always be in the answer to the law. A truly honest person will not obey the criminal orders of the hypnotist and in the same way will not fall into the whirlpool of emotions where his crowd entails, p. The psychological organization is the will of a person, expressed in his ability to withstand the inspiring action of the crowd and its leader.

The ideas of Siegel confirmed the assumption of L. Pochebut about the weakening of the volitional component of the psyche in the conditions of the crowd. Weak -characteristic people fall under the influence of bad examples, fall into the abyss of vice. In the crowd, this happens for several moments.