Objective events in a riot, which often pre-empt public consciousness, represent only the tip of the iceberg. The structural underpinnings of collective violence are embedded into the psychosocial fabric of communities. Observed recurrence of riots among the same pairs of social groups across communities over decades attests to the idea of the embeddedness of ‘riot-proneness’ in the social fabric of a particular community. The often-cited immediate causes (trigger events) for riots are so various that it is hard to justify any single one of them as an actual cause. Social factors invoked in the causation of rioting in existing theories involve changed population composition, competition for sociocultural resources, challenge to the existing social structure, social identification, social deprivation through marginalization, alienation, and systemic discrimination. One common denominator of the above explanations is the presumed rationality (conscious behavior) of actors involved in collective violence. This causal attribution is incompatible with some of the pioneer theoretical ideas from the ‘Collective Psychology’ of violent behaviors. Unconscious processes are underlined as main components of collective violence. French polymath Gustave Le Bon (The psychology of the crowd, T. Fisher Unwin, 1895) espoused the idea of the process of substitution of the unconscious action of crowds for the conscious activity of individuals as a fundamental cause of violent events such as riots, revolutions, and wars. Aggressive instincts have been hypothesized, as underlying factors for various forms of aggression among men (Sigmund Freud, ‘Thanatos’ 1920) and animal (Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, 2002). Given this theoretical context, venturing for an explanation of riots in rational human responses is akin to what is called ‘streetlight effect’—searching for lost keys where there is light instead of where one has lost it. The author attempts to develop a set of propositions fundamentally emphasizing the role of collective minds and, more specifically, the collective unconscious. Therefore, the primary focus is really on injury of the ‘Collective Mind.’ Publicly available information about some of the recent riots that have happened across different communities (e.g. Manipur, Gujrat and Kandaman) in India, along with existing theoretical evidence, are used to evaluate the proposed model. The psychosocial interventions led by NIMHANS for conflict resolution and the promotion of harmony in Gujrat showed that the engagement of communities was crucial in rebuilding trusting relationships. In the light of this model, some of the psychosocial interventions carried out in India are analysed and evaluated through the lens of the phenomenon of ‘healing the collective minds.’

Social Psychology of Riots: Clash of Collective Minds

章节
发表日期：

2026年

查看全文

Ajay Kumar Goyal

摘要

Objective events in a riot, which often pre-empt public consciousness, represent only the tip of the iceberg. The structural underpinnings of collective violence are embedded into the psychosocial fabric of communities. Observed recurrence of riots among the same pairs of social groups across communities over decades attests to the idea of the embeddedness of ‘riot-proneness’ in the social fabric of a particular community. The often-cited immediate causes (trigger events) for riots are so various that it is hard to justify any single one of them as an actual cause. Social factors invoked in the causation of rioting in existing theories involve changed population composition, competition for sociocultural resources, challenge to the existing social structure, social identification, social deprivation through marginalization, alienation, and systemic discrimination. One common denominator of the above explanations is the presumed rationality (conscious behavior) of actors involved in collective violence. This causal attribution is incompatible with some of the pioneer theoretical ideas from the ‘Collective Psychology’ of violent behaviors. Unconscious processes are underlined as main components of collective violence. French polymath Gustave Le Bon (The psychology of the crowd, T. Fisher Unwin, 1895) espoused the idea of the process of substitution of the unconscious action of crowds for the conscious activity of individuals as a fundamental cause of violent events such as riots, revolutions, and wars. Aggressive instincts have been hypothesized, as underlying factors for various forms of aggression among men (Sigmund Freud, ‘Thanatos’ 1920) and animal (Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, 2002). Given this theoretical context, venturing for an explanation of riots in rational human responses is akin to what is called ‘streetlight effect’—searching for lost keys where there is light instead of where one has lost it. The author attempts to develop a set of propositions fundamentally emphasizing the role of collective minds and, more specifically, the collective unconscious. Therefore, the primary focus is really on injury of the ‘Collective Mind.’ Publicly available information about some of the recent riots that have happened across different communities (e.g. Manipur, Gujrat and Kandaman) in India, along with existing theoretical evidence, are used to evaluate the proposed model. The psychosocial interventions led by NIMHANS for conflict resolution and the promotion of harmony in Gujrat showed that the engagement of communities was crucial in rebuilding trusting relationships. In the light of this model, some of the psychosocial interventions carried out in India are analysed and evaluated through the lens of the phenomenon of ‘healing the collective minds.’