Long TextExercise 62 of 81

It has long been a commonplace of social theory that individuals behave differently in crowds than they do in isolation, but the nature of that difference has proven remarkably resistant to precise characterisation. The earliest systematic treatments, most notably Gustave Le Bon's influential study of 1895, portrayed…

• What was the essential character of Le Bon's view of crowd behaviour?
• What evidence does the writer offer for the persistence of Le Bon's ideas?