A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Group Formation and Behavior

Author(s): Thomas D. Eliot

Source: American Journal of Sociology , Nov., 1920, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Nov., 1920), pp. 333-
352
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

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 A PSYCHOANALYTIC INTERPRETATION OF GROUP
FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR

THOMAS D. ELIOT
Northwestern University

I
In I9I8, Dr. W. F. Ogburn presented to the American Eco-
nomic Association at Richmond an analysis of the psychological
background of the economic interpretation of history., His
paper furnishes a starting-point for the statement of some
further social implications of the biogenetic psychology which
may prove new and useful in the interpretation of events and in
the synthesis of political, economic, and psychological theory.
As with Dr. Ogburn's paper, no attempt is made to prove
the points herein made. For the most part, in fact, they are
simply applications of some of the new concepts in psychology
to perfectly familiar events, in a way which links two or three
fields of learning and makes psychology a helpmeet and illuminator
of social science.
Briefly, Dr. Ogburn's thesis was that the frequent apparent
obscurity of economic causes in history is due to the stigma which
civilization, especially Christian civilization, has usually attached
to selfishness in politics, and, one might add, the more immediate
pressure which politicians are always under of winning support
by assurances of common interest in the good of the whole group.
The social disapproval and disadvantage imposed upon the free
expression of greed or self-interest have led to the camouflage of
motives which are basicaliy economic.2
Dr. Ogburn recognizes m these political processes certain
common mental tricks or mechanisms which have long been
I American Economic Review, Supplement, March, i919.
2 Interesting parallels of this thesis were ingeniously illustrated by Dr. Patten,
in his Devdopment of English Thought; cf. pp. i5 ff., I08-9, 112 f., 131-32, 145 if.,
2056, 257, 277 ff.

333

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334 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

classified by the psychoanalysts in work with individuals. By

followers of Machiavelli and Treitschke, perhaps, the tricks are
consciously employed. Many politicians, however, find it neces-
sary to deceive themselves before they can deceive their public.
The subconscious holds in leash the real wish which gets its ful-
filment or compensation by justifying itself in the name of social
welfare, patriotism, revenge, culture, religion, rescue, necessity,
or self-defense.
According to Dr. Ogburn, however, all these motives are fun-
damentally economic in origin or necessarily become economic
before they are transmuted, rationalized, or re-evaluated by poli-
ticians and historians.
It is at this point that further inquiry is suggested; viz., in
the psychoanalysis of the economic motive itself. It is complex,
built up of various simplex motives rooting in instinctive needs or
mechanisms of behavior for which there is no apparent expression
or release at present except through economic channels. Carleton
Parker's paper of the year previous partially covered this ground.
He stated the well-known economic and psychological causes of
industrial unrest and analyzed the process from cause to effect
in terms of modern psychiatry-impulse, suppression, psychosis.
But he confined his analysis to anti-social groups, especially the
I.W.W. of the Northwest. Similar analysis can, it seems to the
writer, be applied profitably to group motivation in general.
An attempt at such analysis will here be approached through a
brief preliminary description of personality in terms of the " new"
psychology.
II

The individual may be roughly symbolized for our purposes

(Fig. i) by a circle inclosing arrows representing impulses, wishes,
strivings, "motor sets," as Holt phrases it. At birth we may
assume that these impulses are largely inchoate, being temporary
"amoebic" expressions of the total prenatal biochemical energy
of the individual pushing out to the environment in various instinc-
tive responses, the chief of which are nutritive and "auto-erotic. "
These impulses do not tend at first to be introspective. Many
of them are at mutual odds, but they are not even organized

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 335

enough to realize much mutual conflict. What conflict there is,

is normally not deep seated; it is easily forgot. The child soon gets
over a cry. But, because the directions of these impulses are widely
distributed, there is an approximate equilibrium, an unstable
equilibrium, such that a stimulus from nearly any quarter will
bring a quick response in that direction, yet diverted with com-
parative ease in another direction by a different stimulus. The
undeveloped personality is suggestible, whether child or savage.
Yet even in undeveloped personalities there is often a "trend"
or "bent "-a predominance of certain strong instincts, or groups
of impulses which, by composition of forces, give the individuality

\ X m >~~~~~Y) 0 Tempevavaer.

FIG. i.-Symbol of an undeveloped personality. A general trend to the right

is indicated, but the wishes are unorganized, at cross-purposes. The dark center
represents the original font from which life-energy (soul, libido, &lan) wells up and out
at various levels. (Cf. Jeliffe, The Technique of Psychoanalysis, diagrams.)

a certain initial direction. In any case, the equilibrium is soon

broken, whether from within or from without; and certain desires
are subordinated more or less permanently, more or less success-
fully, to others. Crude organic impulses are refined, combined,
recombined into the more complex interests, specific desires and
wishes. The real dynamics of these interests still, however, root
back into primitive, often unconscious, sources.
It used to be the fashion to conceive society as created in the
image of an organism. It may be useful, at least, to reverse the
analogy and to conceive the impulses in the individual as in some
sort a society, proliferating, gradually differentiating into groups,

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 336 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

"high-brow" and "low-brow," with its subconscious roughly

corresponding to the inarticulate public, its suppressed complexes
to the "submerged tenth" or "rebel reds," and its focus of con-
sciousness and behavior to society's dominant class activities.
Sanity (a state approximated but never absolute) in the indi-
vidual is comparable to social justice., Some individualities
(the idiotic) fail ever to organize. Still others (the neurotic)
organize unsuccessfully or disastrously their warring impulses.
The foregoing analogy will not hold good throughout, but
will make clearer the concept which follows. For the formation

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FIG. 2-Symbol of a developed personality. Strong polarization of impulses

into a life-purpose; other impulses (a) expressed as hobbies, (b) modified to serve
main purpose, (c) suppressed, and (d) dodging or delinquent.

of personality may be stated in terms of the organization of its

impulses into a working whole, just as the formation of a state
may be stated in terms of the harmonization of conflicting interests.
(See Fig. 2.) Some impulses are suppressed, some are diverted,
some are sublimated, some are encouraged and draw others to
them. Some outlaw impulses escape, or remain concealed in
respectable company. The whole becomes shot through with a
purpose or design, like the lines of force in a magnetic field. The
more highly organized personalities are recognized by their drawing
or driving power, their concentration, equanimity, and singleness
of purpose, and their effective relation to their environments.
' Cf. Giddings, "The Ethical Motive," in Democracy and Empire.

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 337

They have acquired "character." In psychological terms, they

have synthesized, organized, and sublimated their total energy in
relation to a reality principle. Their energy is economized by
self-knowledge and conscious control of inpulse, and a surplus is
available for definitely influencing the environment. The will
becomes free in the degree that this process is accomplished.
This pattern of personal organization is not, however, deter-
mined merely by competition between impulses within the indi-
vidual. That competition is itself largely set in motion and the
handicaps set by the conditions of the environment.
Relative normality of an individual would then consist (to
adapt Dr. Patten's definition) in the harmonious organization of
one's impulses in relation to a given environment; an ideal environ-
ment would make such normality possible for everyone. Under
present conditions such normality is possible for very, very few,
though many can attain it in such measure as to be indifferent or
hostile to social change. Such are our conservative classes. Stand-
patters are not necessarily happy or content, but their problems of
personal adjustment do not seem to them possible of solution
through any change in society at large. They may of course, be
quite as wrong in their judgment as the I.W.W. are in theirs.
They may fantasy a Utopia of the past instead of a Utopia of
the future.
III
Conscious thought may be roughly defined in terms of mental
behavior at a point of relation or adjustment between an individual
and his environment. The personality may be conceived as a
bunch of stored and potential behavior of this sort, conforming to
"distribution curves, " with modes and variants. Conscious
thought, however, seems in general to follow the point of stimula-
tion; though stored internal stimuli or reinforced (over-determined)
impulses and interests are often sufficiently powerful to override
immediate sensory stimuli.' Thought occurs as a function of
adjustment, and is most conscious in the actual process of adjust-
ment. Delay often seems to increase the keenness of desire and
of satisfaction, by accumulation of affect.
I An artist fails to notice a mosquito bite when absorbed in his sketching.

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338 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

If a given state of affairs thwarts or fails to give an expression

to some native instincts of an individual, we have at once a dam-
ming of flow, a congestion of wishes (affect-laden complexes), and
probably acute consciousness and- thought., If the given state of
affairs causes a similar conscious want in many people, it is a
social condition causing a social problem. Max Eastman once
wrote, in substance, that in politics the important thing is not what
men think but what men want; the purpose of thought is to tell
them how to get it. This fits in well with the concepts outlined
above, and leads to their application in the field of political and
historical interpretation.
Various processes of socialization may be interpreted in terms
of wish-fulfilment mechanisms, ofttimes unconscious. These will
be discussed here under the general headings of group formation,
maintenance, and growth; group composition and solidarity; group
interrelation, competition, and success; group sovereignty and
control; group conflict, compromise, and amalgamation; and
group secession and decomposition.

GROUP FORMATION, MAINTENANCE, AND GROWTH

Consciousness of resemblance, like consciousness of difference,

develops from biological sources in response to organic (later
economic) needs. It is a socializing factor in that it serves to
release instincts in social behavior and permits their satisfaction
in group activities.
Imitation is not altogether blindly mechanical. It follows
lines of least resistance. Or, rather, stimuli are responded to and
behavior imitated with relation to the adjustment-needs of the
organism. Imitation implies original similarity of behavior
mechanisms which crave exercise. But imitative behavior may
not occur or will not become habitual unless it prove organically
satisfying, i.e., wish-fulfilling.

'Though, occasionally, in the face of unique circumstances the individual (or

group), lacking appropriate behavior mechanisms, fails to react until too late, or only
vaguely "doesn't know what ails him." Just as chemists, lacking radio-sensitive
nerves, were burned by radioactivity before they knew it; and just as savages ascribed
bullets or diseases to devils, or conservatives fail to adjust to a new social order.

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 339

Whenever an environment is such as to stimulate a similar

set of behavior mechanisms with similar affects in a considerable
number of people, group formation has its natural soil. There
seem to result naturally awareness of wants, concomitant reaction
to similar stimuli, like-mindedness, consciousness of kind and of
common interest, and collective behavior or co-operation. There
arises a true social group, possibly an organization or even an
institution, or a social movement, if the co-operation prove per-
manently effective in satisfying needs and wants. Individuals may
join already existing groups for similar reasons. (See Fig. 3, p. 340.)
Further aspects of group growth will be taken up under the heading
of group competition.

GROUP COMPOSITION AND SOLIDARITY

A group may serve interests far different from its os

purpose. Furthermore, the individuals in a group may be in it
from fundamentally widely variant motives. One thinks at once
of examples such as the readers of a given book or newspaper, or
the difference between Senator Lodge and an Alabama darky as
co-members of the Republican Party; but the differences may be
more subtle. The real motives served, or wishes expressed, in
the choice of a college or a club, for example, are far more complex
than is the obvious educational or recreational purpose of the
group, which is merely a net resultant of the behavior through
which the various wishes of individuals find expresson. The
motives of group-joining may not even be conscious. Such is,
perhaps, the condition of neurotics in social work, "purity" work,
or suffrage campaigns.
It is in the motives of group composition that we shall find
the most important phases of socio-analysis suggested by Dr.
Ogburn's paper. For, while the ostensible purpose of a group or
"movement" or campaign is obvious, its growth may have been
fostered by those who consciously and deliberately, or subcon-
sciously and hypocritically, or unconsciously and naively, are
using its collective strength for very different ends, personal or
factional. And, inasmuch as economic motives are admittedly
powerful, especially when backed by wealth, it is natural to find

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340 THE AMERICAN JOURNVAL OF SOCIOLOGY
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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 341

those so motivated and backed using, for example, patriotic "drives"

to serve their private interests. This fact does not preclude the
active presence of many, even a majority, of sincere patriots. In
fact it is their presence which leads both to the camouflage which
Dr. Ogburn analyzes and to the usefulness of the group for ulterior
purposes.
I think a concrete illustration will be of value at this point.
(See table, p. 343.)
The example taken is a selection from the membership of an
imaginary church. A similar analysis could be worked out for a
political party, a chamber of commerce, or any other group.
To represent diagrammatically in two dimensions dynamic
conditions which demand at least four dimensions is obviously
impossible. Many complex psycho-social relationships have to
be omitted entirely. Enough cases are given to exemplify the
common psychological mechanisms of combination, compensation,
compromise, substitution, ra-tionalization, transference, and sub-
imation, conscious or unconscious.
The stages of recognition of kind, perception of common
interest, concurrent action, combined volition, organization, and
co-operation are here assumed to have taken place. The group
is a going concern or even a chartered institution, with a definite
ostensible purpose.
In each member certain interests may be consciously dominant.
These interests may or may not root back into more primitive but
less conscious or repressed material-instinctive demands which
the individual unfamiliar with unconscious mechanisms might not
admit even to himself. In each member there may also be sub-
ordinate interests, more or less conscious. The group, in this
case the church, may serve either the dominant or the subordinate
needs of the member. Religion itself (the ostensible purpose of
the group) may be either a dominant or a subordinate interest
in the life of a member. Religious association is indulged in by
many for whom religion is not a dominant wish-harmonizer or
integrator. Religion, being itself highly complex, will serve to
satisfy a variety of instinctive material, much of which is in an
otherwise unexpressed condition. The appeal of the church is to

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342 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

all the types just described. Further, with the increasing fulfil-
ment of people's instinctive desires in worldly reality, those con-
trolling the church extend its appeal to include interests not
primarily spiritual, in order to increase or maintain solidarity,
mass, and influence, and thus serve the purpose of the dominant
group. Members joining on the basis of these special appeals,
like those who join from shrewd "ulterior" motives, merely use
the church organization to help fulfil their special interests, whether
dominant or subordinate. Institutional churches extend these
appeals indefinitely.
Such "use" of an organization to fulfil irrelevant desires of its
members is apt to be relatively harmless if it is not exercised by a
subgroup powerful enough to pervert the primary social purpose
of the group and thus betray its members and the general public.
Such factions are often self-deceived. Other factions if disillusioned
may secede individually or collectively.
Church members as typified in the accompanying table therefore
fall into three rather loosely classified groups: (i) those in whom
religion is, at least ostensibly, the dominant conscious motive;
(2) those in whom it is a secondary motive, involved in church
membership and activity; and (3) those in whom there is no real
religious interest, the appeal being on irrelevant grounds. Founders
and active members will be apt to be found in the first and second
groups, though a shrewd self-seeker from group three might also
be a founder. Ordinarily they are persons in whose lives religion
serves as a harmonizing, energizing, assimilative principle which
is therefore projected as a dominant interest. Some members,
on the other hand, are mere drifters, who could hardly tell why
they belong. Many, again, are thwarted or secretly disappointed
in life; to them religion is primarily a reconciler, a consolation,
a hope of wish-fulfilment in a future life, or by proxy.
What interest is sincerely dominant in a church member depends
upon the individual and the occasion. The interests indicated
in the schedule (see table) indicate merely general trends, or net
resultants of behavior. The final column gives the formula
of the psychological mechanisms through which various interests
are satisfied by membership. In many cases it is a "substitute

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 343

COMPOSITION OF IMAGINARY CHURCH

Church Suppressed Interests, Conscious Subordinate Inter- Mecha

MembersChurch
If Any, Involved in Dominant ests, If Consciously Wish-Fu
Connection Interests Served

Clergyman May be any of sev- Religion Personal ambitions; Personal tastes and
eral listed for self-preservation; demands as well
members in same family affection as life-purpose ful-
column filled by profes-
sion
Clergym in's Strong father image Religion Interest in a young Waning interest in
daugater assistant minister church may be
supported by
loyalty and by a
new "transfer-
ence"
Broad-minded . . ...... Religion Other interests con- Co-ordinatiot of
well-rounded sciously correlated wishes promoting
layman to service of God harmonious satis-
faction
Church Inferiority complex; Religion Social service High position in
"pillar" desire for prestige church will vindi-
cate self-esteem
Mystic Introverted libido; Religion Aesthetic Tastes Satisfaction, in sym-
fantsies; mother- bolic theology, of
fixation longing for escape
and security
Bachelor Thwarted in love Religion .................... Jnconscious substi-
long ago tution
Spinster Strong father image Religion . ................... Transference to God
(founder) image . 1_
Woman Sex interest in min- Religion ................... Unconscious fulfilling
(founder) ister of suppressed in-
terest
Neurotic A major suppressed Religion .................... Resolution of con-
complex flict by confi-
dence and conso-
lation
Neurotic A secret "sin" to be Religion Self-esteem Acquisition of self-
overcome respect through
imitation and self-
control fostered by
church
Former Suppressed com - Religion Self-esteem "Emmanuel Move-
drunkard plexes causing ment" straightened
drunkenness out suppressed con-
flicts; escape from
reality in religious
symbols
"Misfit" Variousinternal con- Religion Disappointed hopes Compensation in
flicts and resis- reconciled belief of future
tances rewards
Negative .................... None Herd instinct Church is the "proper
personality thing"
Clergyman's Self-assertiveness Love of husband Religion Identification of
wife and children interests with
husband's, vicari-
ous ambition,
great family love,
greatly strengthen
attachment to
church; religion
alone insufficient
thereto
Widower .................... Longing for wife Religion Partial compen-
sation by con-
scious substitu-
tion; also hope of
reunion
Childless parent .Longing for chil- Religion Partial compensation
(founder) dren by conscious sub-
stitution
Mother ... .L Love for chil- Religion; morality Sunday school win
dren conserve children's
morals

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344 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

COMPOSITION OF IMAGINARY CHURCH

Church Suppressed Interests, Conscious Subordinate Inter- Mechanisms of

Members If Church
Any Involved in Dominant ests, If Consciously Wish-Fulfilment
Connection Interests Served

Soldier Mother'scodeagainst War; success in Religion Church sanctions

fighting army fighting
Architect Desire to display or Ambition for Religion; aesthetic Contacts bring con-
project personal- creative work tastes tracts; church
sty; desire for group and build-
immortality ing please tem-
perament
Scholarly Same as above Same as above Religion; intellectual Brainy sermons and
teacher appreciation church forura are
stimnulation
Poor author Instincts for display Ambition Religion Consolation for
thwarted ambition
and lack of fame;
made much of in
the church
Social worker Interest in suffering Service Religion Religious c hal-
lenge to service
and faith in
future; victory
through self-
sacrifice
Unselfish .................... Power through Religion; altruism Stewardship doc-
capitalist finance trine reconciles
interests
Professor Inferiority complex Ambition for Religion Church of same de-
power nomination as the
coliege helps pros-
pects
Laborer Complex of inferiority Self-preservation Religion; social LiTonely, enjoys com-
instincts pany but usually
afraid to come, or
too tired or poor;
projects a grudge
Poet . ................... Aesthetic life Introvertive imagi- R i t iu a 1, s y m b o l,
nation atmosphere are
congenial and sug-
gestive
Selfish manu- Poverty complex; Money Love of wife Family life helps
facturer self-centered child- starved instincts;
hood; thwarted church attend-
altruism ance keeps wife's
esteem
Young mer- . .............. Business profits . .........C.h.Church brings
chant trade
Lawyer . ................... Love of wife Ambition to succeed Church brings con-
tacts and clients;
wife likes church
Corrupt poli- Guilty conscience Politics; ambi- Self-esteem Attendance and
tician tion c o n t r i b u t i o n
mask guilt from
others and from
self
Society belie Display Social ambition Sex, self-assertive- Fashionable contacts
ness in church
Young man Sex interest Shiftinginterests Conformity to moral- Church sanction on
ity of parents dancing permits in-
dulgence and re-
leases from parent
image
Boy Domineering temper Athletics Family affection Desire of parents
and chance to
organize church
baseball team

formation" or "compromise" expression for some more original

impulse, which gains a partial or total outlet through the church,
whether or not there be in addition a sincere interest in religion.

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHA VIO? 345

In the case of an ostensibly non-economic group like the church,

there is obviously much complexity of motive underlying its
membership. Even, however, in the case of frankly economic
groups, the motivation may be very complex. They are com-
posed of individuals whose motives if analyzed would prove to be
non-economic in the ordinary material sense. Love of power,
prestige, or display, of comfort, leisure, or pleasure; parental and
sexual instincts; the instincts of workmanship and achievement-
all these may enter as dominant or subordinate motives in
industry.'
In the case of a non-economic organization the appeal to
motives for membership other than the ostensible purpose of the
group seems like bastard social economy. In political economics
the appeal for members on non-economic grounds may be equally
insincere. It may, however, have a legitimate basis, if it be an
appeal through the economic to the real impulses which give rise
to the " economic motive. "

GROUP INTERRELATION, COMPETITION, AND SUCCESS

The same individuals may be aligned in scores of different

ways, with the same or other individuals, for the fulfilment of
sundry strivings. (See Fig. 3.) They form the interrelating links
between many groups. Some people are habitual "joiners."
A group of any degree of complexity may be, like the organized
personality of Figure 3, roughly likened for illustrative purposes
to a magnetic field, polarized around the major purpose of the
organization, which is a net resultant of the specific stimuli, the
nature of the units affected, and the general environment; the envi-
ronment would (in the case of the group) include the wvishes of
persons and groups external to the immediate group, such as
contributors, prospective members, "public opinion. "
Groups are regrouped in larger groups, with less definite bonds
of common interest but interrelated by individuals who belong to
more than one subgroup. (See Fig. 4.)
Whether a purpose is ostensibly or actively dominant in a
group depends upon the general social situation, which therefore
I Cf. Ordway Tead, Instincts in Industry.

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346 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

determines which groups "fall off" in membership. Large circles

in the diagram indicate roughly larger groups or classes within
which there are certain common wishes and therefore interlocking
membership. Each smaller group is symbolized by a small circle.
Overlapping circles represent interrelated groups. Infinite dimen-
sions would be needed to represent the actual situation. Net

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FIG. 4.-Crude symbol of group interrelation based on wish-fulfilment

resultant purposes of groups are indicated by heavy arrows, lesser

motives by smaller arrows. The direction of arroWs represents,
in a crude way, the direction of each interest with relation to the
broad contrasts between social classes.
The analogy is that of composition of forces in physics: the
class purposes are resultants of group purposes; group purposes
are resultants of individual wills; and individual wills are resultants

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 347

of the conscious and unconscious wishes of the individual in relation

to any given situation.
The more thorough and complex the system of interests and
of interrelated wish-fulfilling groups, the more "advanced" the
evolution of the society. Progress, however, of course involves
increasingly harmonious and economical readjustments, rather
than mere complexity.
Most groups in-present society require money or work for their
activities; one's "joinings" and the social fulfilment of wishes go,
therefore, according to the principles of comparative marginal
utilities and diminishing returns. Magazines, parties, athletics,
churches, alumni associations, festivals, charities, levels of the
leisure class, come to mind as easy examples. (Cf. Figs. 3, 4.)
When, however, a given group finds a "common interest"
in some unfulfilled wish, it seeks to forward its purpose by increased
membership. If there be two groups with similar ends, there
will be competition for membership in so far as the real wishes
are selfish to each group. Frequently this involves appeal to
different motives in other people, who may thus be persuaded
that the desired result will also fulfil some supposedly legitimate
wish of theirs. This leads to rationalization-the writing of
plausible publicity. Witness the range of motives appealed to
in Liberty Loan or prohibition campaigns. For selfish interests,
however, the substitutions and excuses furnished are usually such
as to appeal to some motives which are less intense but more
generally shared than the special interest which primarily motivates
the campaign. The suppressed wish then gets its fulfilment through
some less inhibited wish-channel. The ostensible purpose is true in
a sense, but less dominant or dynamic, and not alone capable
of motivating the behavior demanded by the affect-laden wish.,
Hypocrisy might be defined in terms of such substitution.
Thus, a self-analytic person may feel a sense of guilt (internal
conflict, repression) when perfectly legitimate motives are evenly
balanced or mixed in his conduct. But, on the other hand,

x Cf. Bernard Shaw's criticism of the British Ministry's elaborate justificati

of war in contrast with the popular simplicity of motives, or, the defense of tolera
prostitution by the "best citizens" under the old regime.

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348 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

the selfish motives may, by these very processes, become sincerely

obscured or secondary in the minds of the "disinterested" or
"indifferent" people whom we call the "public," in relation to a
given issue.
It is in the foregoing way that political and economic and
even moral theories gain currency and power. Some theories
are advanced "before their time": i.e., they do not rationalize
the cravings of an existing group. Even if, in origin, they be
purely "scientific" (a possibility which the extreme psychoanalyst
might deny), theories "prove true" only in so far as they meet
and rationalize the desires of a successful group. Success itself
may be defined in terms of wish-fulfilment or organic wish-harmony.

GROUP SOVEREIGNTY AND CONTROL

A well-organized minority in a group gains a majority by

more or less skilful appeal to the interests of the bulk of the group.
Such behavior implies a previous clear-cut consciousness of common
interest on the part of the dominant minority with respect to some
unfulfilled desires, and especially regarding the means of fulfil-
ment which has been thought out in relation to those desires.
The more fundamentally similar the unfulfilled wishes, the more
permanent and powerful a group or faction is likely to be.
Sovereignty or power rests not so much on physical force as in
the control or potential release of force. Ultimately, dominant
minorities are responsible to the power of their constituency.
They retain control of that power by catering to the wishes of their
followers; by use of the father image or mechanism of author-
ity; by skilfully rationalized theories of wish-fulfilment through
the status quo; by suppressing facts which would release con-
flicting impulses; by offering substitute expressions for anti-
group desires, distractions from thwarted needs, or promises,
compromises, and sops; or, in extremis, preventing new minorities
becoming new majorities by using their existing power to prevent
temporarily, though ultimately to increase, the development of
common interest and collective action among the oppressed vari-
ants. The Prussian Militarist Junkers since I849 have furnished
examples.

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 349

GROUP CONFLICT, COMPROMISE, AND AMALGAMATION

While competition for membership may reach the point of

conflict when membership becomes an end in itself, group conflicts
are usually due to mutually antagonistic wishes, either with respect
to a common interest (such as hunting-grounds or a doubtful state),
or with respect to some policy or behavior which is doing or will do
violence to the interests of one or the other group (such as trade
relations with Russia).
It may often occur that, without the existence of another group
whose "liberty" (wish-fulfilment) is curtailed by the very existence
of its antagonist, either group would be entirely "normal." That
is why the ideal business man and the ideal socialist are both so
lovable when you take them separately.
When two groups have a grievance or conscious thwart in
common, they will make common cause in their immediate activity,
even though logically at odds in other respects; for the immediate
activity is due to a wish which strives for fulfilment because of
some current stimulus or thwarting, and the other differences,
being less insistent for adjustment or satisfaction, are subordinated
or suppressed into a less conscious sphere. Party and church,
inter-college and sectional rivalries, inter-racial and international
realignments, especially in the recent and present wars, suggest
themselves as examples.
Groups with a similar interest not selfish to each group but
common to both and capable of joint fulfilment will rapidly and
easily amalgamate in the absence of egotistic minorities, or even-
tually in spite of them. The fusing of suffrage organizations, of
parties, and of corrupt interests are examples in politics.
When two groups both have wishes, and their fulfilment is
mutually exclusive, both are thwarted acutely and there is war-
orderly or violent as the case may be. It is a function of civilized
government to make such struggles few and orderly. Court
decisions and arbitration boards attempt to harmonize thwarted
interests-and occasionally succeed. They repress the crude pug-
nacity of injured personalities and, theoretically, give it a channel
for relatively sublimated expression. Legislation and treaties
attempt compromise, reciprocal concession, and substitution, just

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 350 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

as a mother does between two quarreling children. Reason is, for

good or ill, secondary to wish-fulfilment. Witness the Peace
Conference.
The so-called "social mind" ordinarily develops more slowly
than that of individuals, because there are infinitely more complex
adjustments and readjustments to be made before internal friction
can be eliminated and a combination or organization of wishes
can be found which will afford a modus vivendi-a psychological
basis for group life.

GROUP SECESSION AND DECOMPOSITION

If a person finds a group to which he belongs committed to

some policy or conduct which would thwart another of his interests
he may have a mental conflict. He must take his choice. He
may try to "swing his group." He may succeed if he can find or
create a powerful enough faction. He will not often succeed if
there is a real thwart or "grievance" widespread and dominant
among the group. The most plausible arguments wili not much
avail, nor will the most logically unanswerable refutations of the
group's "reasons." If he can persuade neither himself nor the
group to reconcile, repress, or gloss over the conflictive wishes he
must then sacrifice his personal wish to his loyalty-wish or herd
instinct; or, he must secede or "get kicked out," and if possible
join another group, whose dominant desires are similar to his own.'
If a man finds two groups to which he belongs striving for
things which are mutually antagonistic he must make a similar
choice.'
When some unforeseen set of conditions suddenly thwarts in a
large number of people a certain set of desires which were pre-
viously fulfilled and therefore less conscious, new groupings are
likely to develop, old groups are likely to "lose interest," and
alignments shift as attention concentrates on the motives now
thwarted, which thereupon become the dominant motives in all
group activity.' Old grudges now repressed project their cumula-
'The opening years of the war furnished many tragic examples of these gen-
eralizations. In groups where conjugation or fission is in process, whether the con-
flict of interests is considered external as between two groups or internal as between
factions of a single group will depend upon the degree to which consciousness of
common interests has waxed or waned in the social mind.

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 GROUP FORMATION AND BEHAVIOR 35I

tive affects into new channels and upon new objects, often over-
determining the new group behavior all unconsciously.

IV

Political consent and "social justice" may be conceived as a

function of the amount of freedom and fulfilment available for the
wishes and interests of a population. For intimidation can only
prevent rebellion or secession by making the instinct of self-
preservation dominant over all thwarted desires. Fear, if it be
the sole sanction of a government, must be increased at an acceler-
ating rate; for thwarted impulses bring concentration of thought
and feeling, and are thereby strengthened even while they are
thwarted. Fear, therefore, has diminishing returns, reaches its
natural limits as a deterrent, and brings revolution or crime.
Justice, on the other hand, is the harmonization of wishes and of
wish-fulfilment.
The unitary or highly centralized state finds it increasingly
difficult to please all of the people all of the time. The "demo-
cratic empire" partly solves the problem through local geographic
autonomy. The so-called pluralistic state of which Laski and
others are writing might go farther in the same direction, by a
further distribution of sovereignty and loyalty.
Thought, closer study of the environment, theorizing, point
out to group leaders ways in which the unfulfilled or thwarted
wishes of the given group can be fulfilled, if possible without
thwarting the activities or desires of any other powerful group.
Still closer study and experience may prove a given theory "false, "
i.e., unworkable or provocative of worse maladjustment, but
until such time it serves. It is usually for or against the beliefs
of others, rather than their desires, that the favor or antagonism
of men (at least ostensibly) is directed. The psychoanalyst
might call this process "projection." The Christian attacks
ideas, not men. We cannot often "fight it out," so we attack
each other's theories and try to "argue it out"-a sublimated
kind of fisticuffs. And for very similar sets of unfulfilled wishes
one man may claim economic remedies, another political, another
religious. The various arguments about slavery and crime and

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 352 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

freedom of speech are typical. It is true that goods and services

will satisfy most wishes, and many wishes can be satisfied in no
other way. This is the real rock upon which the economic inter-
pretation of history is founded. But all theories, including eco-
nomic theory, are based ultimately upon the wishes themselves"
rather than upon their means of satisfaction, which is itself often
the subject of theorization; and the theories of a group may,
therefore, in some cases be as sincere as any theory can be when
held by a whole group, even though they may not refer to eco-
nomic changes, appropriations, or acquisitions necessary to their
fulfilment.
It may be any one of a dozen groups of impulses in unnumbered
permutations that leads to a social theory and social action, and
these impulses may in origin be entirely non-economic or only
indirectly or secondarily economic. The social hygiene campaign,
the men and religion forward movement, the factory legislation
movement,2 are possible examples. An economic basis may, to be
sure, be the indispensable condition for the success of a reform of
which the original motive was sincerely moral. In fact, the
economic motive is frequently used by social workers as a camou-
flage for altruistic motives-witness the Bolshevik bogey and the
economic arguments for playgrounds.
But only where the economic motive is recognized as or accused
of being selfish or wrong does conscience or social censure inhibit
it and give rise to camouflage and hypocrisy. And for such
social hysterias publicity and discussion furnish the salutary
catharsis of the body politic and psychoanalysis of the "public
mind. "

' Value might be defined in terms of power to fulfil or thwart wishes-one's own
or others'.
2 Certain altruistic wishes, if expressed in some theory which if acted upon would
thwart powerful groups, can seldom find expression except in people who can "afford
to be radical. " The same wishes may be present in others, who can only express the
same wish through some other theory which justifies the wish on some popular
economic grounds.

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