Inside the Brain of Occupy Wall Street

If Occupy Wall Street was a walking, talking individual, how would it operate?  What would it think?  In other words, how do the basic principles of human psychology work to explain the Occupy Wall Street movement?

The answer is not an easy one.  In fact, it’s really not a singular answer at all.  Occupy Wall Street, because of its diversity (we’re not talking race here, we’re talking everything! Think motives, people, places, times, etc), is almost impossible to peg into one (or even a few) psychological theories.

As explained in my previous posts, any one theory can be applied in a number of ways to the movement.  For example, group dynamics can make the movement either stronger or weaker, depending on the people and their goals.  These goals are nearly impossible to identify, as explained in Eimilealoisia’s post.  Even when a singular set of goals is created, it is rejected by the rest of the movement.  Without goals, the movement can hardly be deemed a success or failure, and without that kind of judgment, the direction and effectiveness of group dynamics is also hard to pin down.  Similarly, Eimilealoisia explains people’s motives for joining the movement.  Since so many individuals, groups, and nations are involved, nearly everyone has a different personal reason for their support or condemnation of the movement.  Therefore, to explain the movement as a whole’s theoretical reasons for acting the way it does would be illogical and unsuccessful.

Another psychological aspect of the movement relates to leadership.  As explained in my two posts on the issue (which can be accessed here and here), lack of leadership can be either harmful or helpful to a movement depending on its goals (which OWS has not defined…as you can see the argument gets circular here).  And lack of leadership it most certainly is.  OWS prides itself on not naming specific leaders.  Even those who speak in the General Assembly are not viewed as leaders, as explained by Meechiepeachie in A General Intro of the General Assembly.

Issues that define OWS’s core (its “brain” so to speak) such as lack of leadership, an absence of specific demands, and an array of varying motivations to join are what make the movement so hard to define in just a few words.

In other words, Occupy Wall Street is just too diverse in its mechanics to explain using just a few psychological theories.  Occupy Wall Street is leaderless, it involves deindividuation and group dynamics, it refuses to define itself with goals.  It cannot be explained with the same theories that explain the human mind, and for that reason the movement is larger than life.

Jenna

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

I happened upon that YouTube video when looking for evidence of crimes that occur during Occupy protests.  The video sounds like a great resource at first: they haven’t articulated their mission, you say?  Why yes, having read their call to action, it does seem like they are without a specific goal.  They seem to be protesting “everything under the sun,” you say?  I agree, it does seem like people just label everything as “Occupy something” nowadays.  But wait a minute, “unorganized group of punks and entitled socialist dirt bags”?  Okay, maybe this video isn’t so unbiased after all…

However, putting the opinions of the vlogger aside, there is a lot of solid content about crimes that occur to and by Occupy protesters.  This lead to my search for unbiased reporting on the criminal acts at Occupy protests, and let me tell you, this was no easy feat and I feel that I am still very unsuccessful.  As David Meyer said in an ABC News article, “’These protests have a history of welcoming everyone and just assuming they’re on your side’” and as a result, people with maligned intentions have the ability to misuse the cause for their benefit.  However, onlookers do not simply consider that the relationship between crime and Occupy ”was just random variation and no causal relationship had been definitely established,” like Ben Adler did in his article for the Nation.  Cara Buckley explains in her article for the New York Times that “stories of crimes and dangerous behavior [...] have been used as fuel by those who say the protesters must go.”  As a result, especially within the media it seems, the actions of the few somehow end up representing the masses who attend the Occupy demonstrations.  Thus the bias.

Such is the case in a Yahoo News article by Mark Whittington.  When delivering a break-down on crimes that occurred during the Occupy movement across the country, he muses that “’Occupy Oakland’ has devolved into something resembling Lord of the Flies” and reports that the protesters who are a part of Occupy Oakland are ”a group described as ‘bullies, the mentally ill, drunks, thugs and anarchists’ [who] have turned the encampment into something resembling a state of nature, where the strong terrorize the weak, and where ad hoc rule making has caused a combination of anarchy and oppression. ”  Whether this be the case or not, there is no need for name calling.

You can find my post on the Occupy crime report findings here.

Iliana

#FoundingFathers: What Would George Washington Think of OWS?

Founder and CEO of Psych Central John Grohol, Psy.D. is not Occupy Wall Street’s biggest fan.  In his article The Psychology of Occupy Wall Street, Grohol contrasts OWS with the American Revolution.  Hypothesizing a narrative of our Founding Fathers, Grohol describes the revolutionary group as saying:

“Here is what we stand for, here is what we want, and yes, we’re willing to wage war if necessary to attain our demands. Oh, and by the way — here are our names.”

In making this cross-century comparison, Grohol points out a very important obstacle in the way of OWS progress: the lack of a willingness for leader’s to put their name on the line.  Saying that OWS leaders lack true leadership and a vision for the movement, Grohol continues that without these two essential factors, the OWS movement will never have a revolutionary impact on the country like our Founding Fathers did. 

Grohol also points to OWS’s facade of inclusion, stating that any force of “occupation” is quite exclusive rather than inclusive, as OWS claims to be.  Because few Wall Street corporation’s offices actually reside in the places the protestors settle, the movement creates an offensive, foreign, excluding force to the majority of the residents of cities that are “occupied” without even reaching the coporate offices.  Historically, the word “occupy” has referred to forceful intrusions into an already established culture.  To exemplify this point, Grohol points to the Nazi Germany occupation of Poland and France.  So by its very nomenclature, Occupy Wall Street presents a hostile front while claiming to be an inclusive, nonviolent force for change.

Grohol’s comparison seems to be quite appropriate and easily understood in the context of his article.  If Occupy Wall Street wants to be successful they need to make a few key changes.  These include naming strong leaders, setting a focused and attainable goal, and presenting a more positive force in the communities the protestors occupy.

Jenna

What We Have to Gain: Why Occupy Wall Street Defies the Laws of Social Psychology

It has been well established in the realm of social psychology that, when acting within a large group, individuals often become “deindividuated” (Ziller 344).  That is, the individual disappears within the group, and no longer feels the burden of individual responsibility.  This inhibition fuels behaviors that group members would not commit on their own, but because of the safety of a group identity, feel compelled to act in a way that is not consistent with the self (Ziller 344).  However, one important aspect of this theory is not as commonly discussed: when do individuals tend to deindividuate, and when do they choose to stand by themselves?

R.C. Ziller (1964) suggests that whether or not individuals take on the group identity depends on the level of reward or punishment offered by the actions of the group.  When a situation is likely to be rewarding, group members learn to individualize themselves within the group because they want to take credit for the actions that were or will be positively recognized.  Conversely, when the outcome is negative and involves punishment, individuals are more likely to fade into the group identity to diffuse responsibility among other group members.  With this set of parameters, Ziller brings about a compelling dichotomy to group dynamics.

In the Occupy Wall Street Movement, social media is commonly used to disseminate ideas and events quickly and efficiently to a large number of people, as is discussed in Wasik’s article.  Ziller’s theory can be easily applied to the movement and this use of social media forums, like Twitter.  The two types of action, based on reward and punishment, can be transparently overlayed onto the Twitter constructs of “Followers” and “Following” for any given individual involved in the movement to any degree (whether it be actively participating in the movement, or merely knowledgable that the movement exists). 

Occupy Wall Street protesters gather in New York City in October 2011.

On Twitter, individuals can “follow” other Twitter accounts so that they receive updates from these users.  In OWS, Twitter is used to quickly get the word out about events and other happenings within the movement.  By “following” OWS-related Twitter accounts, people become “deindividuated” within the group.  That is, the group associates with them, but the individual can choose whether or not to associate with the group by ignoring, endorsing, participating in, or condemning the tweet.  On the other side, this same user also has “Followers” of his or her own.  When a person chooses to tweet about the movement, he or she is making a conscious effort to individualize the self from the group.  That is, the individual is taking credit for and acknowledging membership within the movement.

R.C. Ziller’s theory applies to Twitter in that it hypothesizes that individuals at first choose to “follow” the movement-based Twitter account as an effort to ‘test the water.’  These individuals do not yet know whether the outcome of being in such a group will be rewarding or punishing, so they remain deindividualized.  Once an individual feels comfortable with the movement and feels that there will be some type of reward for being involved, he or she chooses to individualize the self by publishing or citing tweets that endorse or condemn the movement.  Thus, by tweeting, the individual takes credit for his or her stance. 

R.C. Ziller’s theory serves to teach us that it’s really all about the outcomes: if good things happen within OWS, individuals will likely try to take credit for themselves, while if bad things happen surrounding the movement, individuals disappear into the group identity.  This rapid fluctuation of loyalty to the cause makes OWS quite volatile: if people are not instinctually driven to remain loyal to the group when the group’s actions are rewarded, the movement is liable to fall apart as soon as it comes close to reaching a major success. 

Thus, it would be to the great advantage of the group to offer rewards beyond recognition for its members.  Here we see something that Ziller did not discuss in detail: the goal of a mass movement.  OWS retains strong members throughout its ups and downs because it promises to create change for those involved, i.e. the 99%.  Although social theories like that of R. C. Ziller are largely applicable to group protests, Occupy Wall Street proves unique in its enduring nature and promise to create change for its members.

Jenna

The Psychological Side of Protest

Bill Wasik does an excellent job of explaining how social media and the instantaneousness of contemporary technology make riots stronger, more unpredictable, and more dynamic.  Social media possesses the ability to bring groups together who would have never found each other otherwise, while instant communication bases like BBM and Twitter serve to physically converge the members of these groups in events like riots and protests.  Combined, these two forces strengthen one’s belongingness in the group and create the “Elaborated Social Identity Model” which creates a dynamic group, rather than individual, identity and frees members to act on their “baser impulses,” thus intensifying the riot.

When discussing the potential for apps to play a role in planning and executing riots more effectively, Wasik states that “When disorder strikes or danger looms, [rioters] will fall back on the social ties they have already established, the tools they already posses, the patterns they already follow.”  With this very observation, Wasik speaks against his own argument that when people come together to riot, they will act strongly in favor of the group’s agenda or “identity”.  The very nature of these violent riots presents participants, first-timers and regulars, with a dangerous, uncertain situation.  According to Wasik’s statement, these rioters are likely to fall back on their pre-established social ties and patterns, they will revert to their more practiced, and likely more socially acceptable, behaviors and lose the spark to act that is mob mentality.  Although Wasik thoroughly discusses the role of psychological group dynamic in riots, he fails to bring both possible outcomes together to analyze which group situations might produce stronger riots and which may weaken the event’s agenda, which is an important factor when considering the psychological processes involved in riots and protests.

Jenna