Group Mind pt. 2: Concerts, Riots, Cults

We continue to describe extreme aspects of group psychology, delving into phenomena like death from social exclusion. We examine cross-species similarities in the drive for sociality for its own sake, discuss how certain varieties of evolutionary theory cannot account for the behaviors we observe, and how they also contribute to a culture war regarding evolutionary explanations. We look at results from experiments in group psychology, describe the notion of supernormal stimulus, and propose an explanation for the internet fragmenting, rather than unifying, our perceptions of the world.