Randon Musings

There is a psychological concept called the Threshold Model for Group (or Collective) Behavior. That I spend an incredible amount thinking about.  To the point of obsession.

It is a theoretical framework used to explain how we make decisions and take collective actions, such as participating in protests, adopting new behaviors, or supporting social movements. But also, how and why we can do certain things we couldn’t have previously imagined ourselves doing.  Like sacrificing children as part of a Camp evening activity.  (Extreme, perhaps. Impossible? Certainly not)

This model suggests that individuals have different thresholds, or levels of willingness to do certain things.  For me this would be dancing or singing in public.  I would never sing alone in front of people, but I have sung at concerts and sporting events.  There is something about a large group that makes certain things more acceptable and feel safer.  It’s not merely safety in numbers that makes this behavior permittable, there is also a large social component.  For deep down who doesn’t secretly desire the acceptance of our peers, and to a lesser amount the admiration of strangers.

Everyone has a specific threshold or tolerance to any given action. Some people may have low thresholds, meaning they are more easily swayed to join a collective action, while others may have high thresholds, requiring strong motivation or persuasion to participate. But our social surroundings can lower these limits. For example, when we see people, we know or respect participating in an action, or these same people encourage an action, it can lower our threshold for participation.

What’s more, the model suggests that as more individuals with low thresholds join a collective action, it can create a "cascading" effect, influencing others with higher thresholds to also join in, building towards a  critical mass where a group of people with varying thresholds cross a line and collectively decides to act. This point represents a significant shift in the dynamics of the group.  This is the point when a protest becomes a riot and otherwise peaceful people turn to violence. Or we sacrifice children by mistake at an evening activity. (don’t worry this hasn’t happened at any camp I know, yet.)

This concept can be used for good.  For example, the rapid shift in public opinion that moved us from vilification to acceptance of same sex relationships in the US in the two thousand and teens.  Or bad, high-speed driving by young male drivers.  In this example, a teen when driving alone drives one way, but as the number of passengers increases, so does the pressure to drive more dangerously.  Suddenly a reserved driver starts making fatal mistakes because their personal threshold to reckless was +2 passengers.

Sadly, this same theory can be applied to genocide.  The threshold model provides insights into the tragic events of the Rwandan Genocide in the 1990s. It suggests that individuals in Rwandan society had varying thresholds for participation in violence, with some easily influenced by propaganda, peer pressure, and dehumanization of the Tutsi population. As violence escalated, a cascading effect occurred, lowering the thresholds of those initially reluctant to participate and leading to mass killings.

It’s a powerful concept, it’s one I have seen myself and others influenced by at Camp.  Normally at Camp this is a positive thing, we see otherwise reserved people singing and dancing in public, taking part in skits, and a perplexingly high number of international staff who arrived at our camps strongly identifying as male wearing ill-fitting dresses by summers end.  This says a huge amount about the safe spaces and strong social networks we build at camps.  We see it with groups visiting camp who see us cleaning up and moving tables and offer to help, and soon everyone is helping.  I see it in spontaneous dance parties in the rain.  Helping campers with their bags and in a 100 other ways every day.  It takes a few, then a few more and we have a movement.

But it does make me wonder.  How big a community and how strong would the bonds need to be for a handful of staff to decide that sacrificing a child in the name of theatre during an evening activity would be an acceptable course of action, and for others to go along with it until it was too late? 

I hope the answer is never.  But the threshold model of group behavior says there is a combination of size and community that makes this not a possibility, but a certainty.  This notion lives in my brain rent free. There is a number and a degree of cohesion, we just don’t know what it is.  I hope it’s not one of my camps that tests the theory.