As I stated in my previous posts, The Atlas of Social Complexity is comprised of several content themes.
The first major content theme in The Atlas of Social Complexity is Cognition, Emotion and Consciousness. This first theme includes six chapters, which I have so far blogged on. Chapter 6 addresses autopoiesis. Chapter 7 turns to the role of bacteria in human consciousness. Chapter 8 explores how the immune system, just like bacteria and cells, is cognitive – and the implications this has for our wider brain-based consciousness. Chapter 9 explores a complexity framing of brain-based cognition, emotion and consciousness. Chapter 10 explores the complex multilevel dynamics of the Self. Chapter 11 is about human-machine intelligence.
The second major content theme in The Atlas of Social Complexity is The Dynamics of Human Psychology. So far for this theme, I’ve given a basic overview, found here. I then moved on to the first theme, Human psychology as dynamical system (Chapter 13). From there I reviewed Chapter 14: Psychopathology of mental disorders ; Chapter 15: Healing and the therapeutic process; and Chapter 16: Mindfulness, imagination, and creativity.
The third major theme is living in social systems (Chapter 17). The first chapter in this section it Complex social psychology (Chapter 18) The focus of this post is the first chapter in this theme, Chapter 19: Collective behaviour, social movements and mass psychology.
OVERVIEW OF CHAPTER 19:
Our Globalised World. 2025 C.E. We are presently living in troubled times, where the collective psychologies of cultural groups and social movements are up against the stone-cold truths of the global social problems we presently face, and with the economic and public health consequences of globalization, the COVID pandemic, and global warming and the environment being the biggest threats, along with what appears to be a self-defeating inability to work together to solve our common problems. It is as if the world is at each other’s throats.[1]
Post-truth society, climate denial, the alt-right, neoliberalism, anti-elitism, political correctness, the particularism of liberal identity politics – the social psychology of our troubled times has led to a resurgence of interest in fields of social inquiry that focus on the dynamic between the human psyche and collective behaviour. These are usually grouped under the header of collective behaviour, mass or collective psychology, and the study of social or political movements.
A QUICK SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE
Despite recent renewed interest in these topics, they have a longstanding history within political science and, more specifically, political psychology,[2] as well as social psychology,[3] organisational studies[4] and social movement theory.[5] The study of collective behavior has a rich intellectual lineage, tracing back to foundational works like Machiavelli’s The Prince and Hobbes’s Leviathan, which linked the human psyche to societal dynamics. Hobbes famously described the human condition as one of war, while later thinkers such as Marx explored ideology and class consciousness. Pareto’s Mind and Society and early political behavioralists like Merriam and Lasswell added depth to this field, particularly in the study of politics and psychopathology.
Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd (1895) remains a seminal text, introducing contagion theory and the idea of crowd-driven “hive minds” that are emotionally charged but intellectually weak. Freud, influenced by Le Bon, offered a more nuanced view in Civilization and Its Discontents, arguing that individuals resist social obligations despite their potential to secure happiness. Freud’s psychoanalytic insights significantly shaped early 20th-century social theorists like Adorno, Fromm, and Arendt, as well as political psychology pioneers such as Reich.
Post-World War II, social movement theory evolved, with scholars like Habermas, Smelser, and Touraine examining global protests and worker movements. Complexity science also engaged with these topics, blending cybernetics, systems theory, and second-order cybernetics. Key contributors included Bateson, Wiener, and later Castells, whose Networks of Outrage and Hope exemplifies modern approaches to understanding collective behavior in complex, interconnected societies.
Where are we now?
While systems theory has influenced the study of collective behavior and social movements, its impact remains limited, particularly in English-speaking contexts. Over the past two decades, psychology and collective behavior have expanded into areas like public policy (e.g., nudge theory), evolutionary psychology (kin selection, cultural evolution), behavioral economics (bounded rationality, prospect theory), cognitive science (group think, belief bias), and public health (theory of planned behavior). Yet, these fields lack engagement with the complexity sciences, leading to a diminished “social complexity imagination” and insufficient integration with sociological social psychology.
Ironically, systems theory’s insights into collective behavior are also marginalized within the complexity sciences, which often prioritize computational modeling and psychological reductionism. This reductive focus overlooks critical lessons from political psychology, organizational studies, and social movement theory. When these fields are engaged, their approaches are often simplified into quantifiable models, as seen in the field of opinion dynamics, further diluting their sociological depth.
THE DEFIANCE OF GLOBAL COMMITMENT: A COMPLEX SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
I move beyond traditional functionalist models, adopting Sylvia Walby’s concept of domains as self-organizing patterns of behavior. Unlike rigid subsystems, domains reflect the flexible and emergent nature of social institutions. My analysis of social movements, from the Arab Spring to #MeToo, underscores their dynamic, multi-level, and self-organizing character, driven by the interplay of in-group/out-group dynamics and identity formation. These movements exemplify the emotional and cognitive biases that influence collective behavior, as well as the power dynamics that shape their trajectory.
Through this lens, I explore “negative collective psychologies,” such as revolting elitism, which undermines civil society, and contrast them with “collective adjacent possibles,” like ecofeminism, which promote global commitments. Using a configurational approach, I examine how these psychologies coexist and compete within the broader social landscape.
My work situates collective behavior within social practice theory, emphasizing the relational interplay of structure, pattern, and process. I highlight how power, conflict, and emotional biases impact social movements and collective psychologies. By framing these dynamics as feedback loops between individuals and larger social systems, I aim to offer a nuanced understanding of how we navigate the tensions between resistance, cooperation, and social change in an increasingly complex world.
[1] If this book is fortunate enough to be around 100 years from now, we hope the world is in a better place.
[2] Cottam, Martha L et al. Introduction to political psychology. Routledge, 2022.
[3] Gamson, William A. "The social psychology of collective action." Frontiers in social movement theory 1 (1992): 53-76. Klandermans, B. The Social Psychology of Protest (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford 1997).
[4] McAdam, Doug, and W. Richard Scott. "Organizations and movements." Social movements and organization theory 4 (2005).
[5] Buechler, Steven M. "New social movement theories." Sociological Quarterly 36, no. 3 (1995): 441-464.
