Despite what we hear from the media, the reasons so many are gathering are complex and various
Britain is in mourning. This is affirmed every time we turn on the television and see the huge numbers of people watching royal processions, or willing to queue for long hours to file past the Queen’s casket. They have gathered, we are told, “to pay their respects”. They are there “to thank the Queen”. Above all, they are “united in grief”. In this way, a picture is built up of a homogenous national community defined by its love of monarch and monarchy. But things are not that simple.
I am part of a team of social psychologists who have long been interested in collective behaviour, and we are investigating the crowds at the various ceremonial events in Edinburgh and London. We are interested in why people gather, how they experience these gatherings and the consequences – both for the individual and for society – of their presence. The first thing we have learned is that any attempt to reduce crowd participation to a single, universal motivation is a distortion. People come along for many different and mixed reasons, not all of which involve allegiance to the monarchy.
Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an authority on crowd psychology
