How the Christmas consumer crush can actually be pleasurable: Social identity …

People are happy in crowds if they socially identify with others, study found
At music events, being a part of a massive crowd is part of the attraction

By
Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED:

06:02 GMT, 14 November 2013

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UPDATED:

06:02 GMT, 14 November 2013

A packed train on a rush-hour commute or the consumer crush on the high street in the run up to Christmas are many people's ideas of hell on Earth.

But new research suggests that in some circumstances the experience of being caught up in a heaving crowd is actually highly enjoyable.

Psychologists from the universities of Sussex, St Andrews and Leeds examined why some people sought out and gained pleasure from crowded areas.

Consumer crush: Crowds of Christmas shoppers out buying presents in Oxford Street, London. New research has shed light on why some people, in some circumstances, actually enjoy being in crowded places

Consumer crush: Crowds of Christmas shoppers out
buying presents in Oxford Street, London. New research has shed light
on why some people, in some circumstances, actually enjoy being in
crowded places

As part of their research, published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, academics surveyed people at a Fatboy Slim gig in Brighton and a protest march against NHS changes.

They found that social identity was a key factor in predicting positive emotions, and that people's social identification with the crowd led them to seek out and enjoy more dense locations.

University of Sussex psychologist John Drury, who supervised the research, said: 'Brightonians will remember the Big Beach Boutique of 2002 when 250,000 people packed on to the beach to see Hove-based DJ Fatboy Slim.

'That was a very crowded event indeed. Yet among our survey participants, the more they defined themselves as part of the crowd, the less they were to report feeling too crowded.'

Now that's a crowd... Some of the 200,000-strong crowd enjoying themselves at the Big Beach Boutique in July 2002. At music events, being a part of the crowd is a key part of the attraction, the researchers found

Now that's a crowd... Some of the 200,000-strong
crowd enjoying themselves at the Big Beach Boutique in July 2002. At
music events, being a part of the crowd is a key part of the attraction,
the researchers found

Researchers said their findings explained why, from the outside, a crowd might look unappealing but is actually a pleasurable experience for many people.

At music events, the crowd is a key part of the attraction, they added. Dr Drury argued that the findings have important implications for psychology.

He said: 'There is an idea in psychology that we have a relatively fixed need for "personal space". This would mean that other people are inevitably a threat to our comfort.

'But this wrongly assumes that we each have just one identity - a personal identity. Our findings are part of a body of work that shows that we have multiple identities based on our group memberships.

'The salience of different identities varies according to social context. At those times when people share a social identity with us, their presence is not an invasion of our space at all.

'They are not "other", they are "us".'