Faceoff: Does mob mentality exist in schools?

The Messenger debates behavioral patterns in schools.

Graphic by Kevin Xiang, Copy/Multimedia Editor

Yes

Mekayla Upton, Social Media Manager

Mob mentality is, by definition, the ability of humans to adopt behaviors and follow trends based on their circle of influence. This appears in many forms, whether it’s through blindly following someone in class or copying a celebrity. In schools, mob mentality remains a permanent fixture in students’ lives. 

Mob mentality often permeates students’ minds through habitual schoolday occurrences. For instance, in elementary schools, teachers often hold class votes-- through the premise of classwide voting -- to ensure that every student in the class is able to express their opinions. More often than not, students vote in favor of the majority opinion due to their inclination to agree with the rest of their classmates. This is an example of one of the ways that mob mentality can be in the school environment. However, this is not the only form through which it is evident. It is apparent in many ways, big or small, positive, or negative. 

Although this is a small instance of mob mentality, it is still a prime example of what this phrase truly means. To a more severe extent, mob mentality impacts students through activities like drug usage, which many youths often see as a social rite of passage. Many students who start high school fall in with the wrong crowds and end up partaking in harmful activities like illegal substance use. Oftentimes, this is because they crave the social approval that accompanies conforming to such social norms, once again succumbing to mob mentality.  

However, mob mentality can manifest in positive aspects as well, especially in schools. Whether through spreading awareness or students leading a protest for something they believe, this sort of groupthink can inspire students to collaborate for just causes. In fact, one of the most prevalent instances of mob mentality in schools is when students influence one another to study more and achieve better grades. The healthy competition that school environments often foster is inarguably a result of mob mentality and exemplifies the impact of such groupthink in schools.

Although mob mentality manifests in different ways, it is still a social construct that impacts school environments. Students’ day-to-day behaviors showcase this inclination in schools and thus permanently mold mob mentality into the minds of students. At no point in the past, present, or future will there be a world without mob mentality in schools. It is a psychological behavior that will always be apparent in the ways that humans interact with each other.

No

Kevin Xiang, Copy/Multimedia Editor

Mob. The word engenders a connotation of irrational and off-the-hooks behavior from a sea of people too large to handle. Think of the riots on January 6 after the 2020 election, or the Salem Witch Trials. But high school students? Applying such a term seems wrong, and for good reason.

High schoolers are not inherently bad people. The chances of any factors that cause mob mentality appearing in high schools are exceedingly low, especially considering that the school environment specifically discourages it. There are teachers, administrators, and a clearly outlined disciplinary handbook that breaks up any troublesome groups or behaviors. Not to add that students would shy from such groups anyways. There are teachers who constantly ask for differing opinions in discussions and character-building lessons that point to the negative effects of joining such groups. Combine that with impulsive teenagers that resist conformity or outside authority in the first place, and one would get an environment that is extremely unconducive to any such mob activity.

In fact, most incidents linked with mob mentality - cafeteria birthday clapping or a fashion trend - are relatively mellow. Hardly anything that resembles a raging mob.  Labeling such events as mob mentality at all is misleading because there is none of the ruinous destruction that such a label implies.

In fact, applying such a label may obscure more serious problems that are actually mob mentality. Consider the recent rise of school violence, where the number of fights has dramatically increased as students returned to in-person learning. Sure, mob mentality could potentially cause school fights - it is easy to associate the violent nature of both - but applying that label to the recent rise would miss the genuine social-emotional problems associated with quarantining for a year and a half. By blindly applying the mob label to such issues, one could overlook their severe underlying causes.

And even in the case of group bullying, which may be perhaps the closest occurrence to mob mentality, where a group teams up against a target, usually with one person dishing out the majority of the abuse, applying the label would miss a significant factor too - the peer pressure that keeps the group in line. The word mob implies an almost absentmindedness, where rational thought fuses into a homogenous groupthink, without much objection from each individual. That’s not the case in group bullying, because many of those in the group bullying are rational humans, simply fearful of rejection from their friend group. There is a difference between succumbing to the heat of the moment while in a group and acting by fear. While mob mentality may have sparked the beginnings of such occurrences, it is certainly not the device that continues to perpetuate them.

While there may be similar mechanisms at work in schools, the key truth is that there are slight nuances that differentiate such mechanisms from being truly associated with mob mentality. The school environment is simply not the place for such inclinations to occur. Students do stupid things, but there are no mobs in schools.