What is a collective consciousness?

Collective consciousness is a term used in sociology, study of human societies. It refers to the knowledge and belief shared by all members of a particular group as to whether this group includes several individuals, nation or planetary population as a whole. Collective consciousness allows members of the group to share common objectives, behavior and attitudes. It also encourages individuals with different opinions on adaptation to the faith of the overall group. In short, it allows human society.

, including humans, are social animals. Like other social animals, such as wolves or ants, they prefer to live in groups for many reasons. Although it is possible for individuals to survive in isolation, it is rare for a person to do so by choosing. In fact, such social isolation is considered an extreme form of punishment in many societies. Sociologists and other scientists studied psychological basis for social groups and collective consciousness of IS one of the primary factors under the activities of the human group.

FrancoUzský sociologist Émile Durkheim created the term collective consciousness in the 19th century. This illustrated what he and other scientists discovered about how human beings interact. Because people are fully able to act independently, there must be strong motivations for most of them to act most of the time in cooperation. In all human societies, most members will adapt to group attitudes about appearance, behavior, social interaction, and so on, although there are viable alternatives.

Durkheim suggested that collective consciousness should result from strong positive and negative pressure on individuals. From a very early age, each person learns that some behavior results in peers approval, while other behavior causes gentle or strong disagreement. Once this knowledge is fully assimilated, the person will respond similarly to the behavior of others. In this way, the value of the group becomes the values ​​of the singleVCE. This ensures that the individual corresponds to social concepts, such as laws or moral codes, although its natural tendency is to do differently.

pioneering psychologist C.J. Jung suggested that in addition to collective consciousness there is a collective unconscious. Jung believed that some of the human concepts he called archetypes were inherited rather than learned. This would explain why all human societies share some attitudes, beliefs and laws, even those companies developed in isolation. From a psychological point of view, these theories are not only important for the study of human society; They offer knowledge about how the individual can achieve happiness, although his personal goals differ significantly from the objectives of society in general.