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Le Bon's The Crowd
Gustave Le Bon's Psychologie des foules described crowds as moved by contagion, suggestion and unconscious motives. It was widely read, but it has no empirical method, rests on racial theory, and a modern reviewer says its theses have been largely abandoned.
- Where it sits
- Pop claimA popular book, media story or folk belief.
- Evidence level
- ContestedThe evidence conflicts or is disputed, for example after failed replications.
- Sources inspected
- 3 of 32 with the relevant text, company document or archive item checked, 1 as an abstract or reference article, 0 not verified.
What happened
Gustave Le Bon published Psychologie des foules in 1895. The Project Gutenberg English edition is titled The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Le Bon argues that an era of crowds is arriving and that crowd psychology is a resource for statesmen. Its three books cover the mind of crowds, their opinions and beliefs, and types of crowd such as criminal juries and parliamentary assemblies.
The psychological idea
Le Bon proposed a law of the mental unity of crowds: in a crowd, individual feelings and thoughts turn one way. He said crowds are guided almost exclusively by unconscious motives, and that feelings and acts spread by contagion, which he called a phenomenon of a hypnotic order. He compared a crowd member to a hypnotized subject in a state resembling fascination. This is his own analogy, not a tested finding.
In practice
No use in advertising is documented in the sources opened for this record. Leaders and their means of persuasion are one topic in book two. In Propaganda (1928), Bernays says Trotter and Le Bon approached the group mind in a scientific manner, which shows Le Bon was known to a public relations writer of the 1920s. It does not show that his claims were applied.
Why it mattered
The book gave later writers a vocabulary for mass influence: contagion, suggestion and the crowd mind. John Drury reports that Gordon Allport defined it as the most influential book in social psychology, and Davide Palano says it continues to be reprinted worldwide. Influence is a historical fact. It is not evidence that the claims are correct.
Limits and qualifications
Le Bon says he examines crowds in a purely scientific manner, but the text read describes no study design or data collection, and he calls the book a brief synthesis offering a few suggestive views. He attributes differences between national crowds to inherited racial character, and Palano calls him obviously racist. Drury says Le Bon's theses have been abandoned and that crowds act on specific social identities and are not irrational. Later chapters were not read.
Evidence behind the claims
Le Bon argues that an era of crowds is arriving, that understanding crowd psychology is a resource for statesmen, and that crowds are guided almost exclusively by unconscious motives under a law of the mental unity of crowds.
Le Bon describes contagion as a phenomenon of a hypnotic order and compares a crowd member to a hypnotized subject, in a state resembling fascination.
Le Bon describes his method as purely scientific, calls the book a brief synthesis asking for a few suggestive views, and attributes differences between Latin and Anglo-Saxon crowds to inherited racial traits.
The book has three books: the mind of crowds, the opinions and beliefs of crowds including leaders and their means of persuasion, and the classification of crowds including criminal juries, electoral crowds and parliamentary assemblies.
The dossier lists Le Bon's preface to Psychologie des foules as dated 1895, and Palano's abstract says the book continues to be reprinted all over the world and calls Le Bon obviously racist.
Drury's abstract states that Le Bon's theses have been radically criticized and abandoned, that crowds are not irrational actors but act on specific social identities, and reports Allport defining the book as the most influential in social psychology.
In Chapter IV of Propaganda, Bernays says Trotter and Le Bon approached the subject of the group mind in a scientific manner.
People involved
- Gustave Le Bon. French author of Psychologie des foules
- John Drury. Social psychologist who evaluates Le Bon against current research
In the Psy101 course
- OpenStax Psychology 2e, section 12.4: Conformity, Compliance, and ObedienceChapter 12, Social Psychology. Context. The section discusses this topic.Covers group influence and deindividuation, linked to mob behavior. It does not mention Le Bon, contagion or suggestion.
This is course relevance only. It is not evidence for the historical or corporate claims on this page.See the full course map.
Sources and inspection
3 of 3 sources were opened and read at the level shown. A source marked as not verified supports no claim on this page by itself.
- [1]The Crowd: A Study of the Popular MindLe Bon, G.. Project Gutenberg, ebook 445, 1895. Book. Primary source.Relevant text checkedRead the first 100,000 characters (of about 350,000) of the Gutenberg HTML as returned by the fetch tool: contents, introduction, preface and Book I to partway through chapter III. Later chapters were not read. The page names no translator or English edition year, so none is claimed.
- [2]Gustave Le Bon: la politica nell'epoca delle folle (Rivista di Politica, issue 04/2022)Istituto di Politica; introduction by Palano, D.; review by Drury, J.. Istituto di Politica, 2022. Journal article. Critique or replication.Abstract or publisher record onlyRead the dossier page, which gives English abstracts of Palano's introduction and Drury's review and an archive list. Drury's article itself was not opened, so his points are reported as his claims.
- [3]PropagandaBernays, E. L.. Horace Liveright; scan at Internet Archive, 1928. Book. Primary source.Relevant text checkedRead the first 100,000 characters (of about 226,000) of the OCR scan as returned by the fetch tool. Used only for the Chapter IV statement about Trotter and Le Bon.
Access note: Nye's and Moscovici's books were not opened; their views are not reported. Le Bon's later chapters were not read. The dossier page was read as abstracts only.
Independent source review: Claude review agent, independent of the research agent, 2026-10-21. Verdict: pass-with-edits.