Which theorist is associated with the idea that crowds behave as a single organism with a collective mind?

• A. Karl Marx
• B. Émile Durkheim
• C. Gustave Le Bon
• D. Sigmund Freud

Answer: (C)

Crowd psychology examines how individuals behave when merged into a larger group. The idea that crowds act as a single organism with a collective mind comes from Gustave Le Bon, who argued that in a crowd people lose their individual self-control and rational judgment. Emotions spread quickly through contagion, and the group tends to think in simple, sweeping terms, driven by impulsivity and suggestibility rather than careful analysis. This view captures the sense that the crowd operates with a unity and immediacy that feels like a single mind.

Why the others don’t fit as neatly: Karl Marx focuses on economic structures and class struggle rather than the psychological dynamics of crowds; Emile Durkheim speaks of a collective conscience that binds society but doesn’t describe crowds as a single, mind-like entity; Sigmund Freud centers on unconscious processes within individuals and individual psychology, not the emergent properties of crowds as a whole.

So, Gustave Le Bon is the theorist associated with the idea of crowds behaving like a single organism with a collective mind.