Groups

Men live in groups: this is a platitude which has been traced back as far even as Aristotle, who said that man is, according to the usual translation of his famous phrase, a political animal and, according to another, perhaps less equivocal translation, a social being. Usually this is recognized, but there are also many completely unacceptable interpretations. The fact is that there is indeed a group effect, as diverse observations or experiments show. In explaining how an individual can be brought to change his opinion or attitude, one realizes that the group to which he belongs bears an influence on the speed and direction of this change. Asch used these hypotheses to develop a range of well-known experimental situations. In general, the subject of Asch’s experiment aligns himself with the positions that he identifies with the group, and this identification, which can be motivated by the search for security, can push him to take a ‘risk’ with his perception of a given situation. For example, in one such experiment, a line can be perceived to be systematically lengthened compared to an ambiguous standard of reference, if the line has been apparently agreed to be bigger than the reference, according to the consensus of the group in which the subject is placed. But it would be unacceptable to conclude from such facts that the individual is somehow ‘dissolved’ in the group. Indeed, such formulas go much further than the observed facts. In addition, they make reference to notions such as hypnosis or suggestion in connection with which Durkheim, in his critique of Tarde, showed that where hypnosis or suggestion occurs the relationship established between the parties concerned cannot be considered social. It is only in extreme and exceptional cases that the effect of the group is accompanied by the submergence of the individual into the group of which he is a member.