Starting from the 70th Anniversary of September 6–7

This weekend marked the 70th anniversary of the September 6–7 Events. In 1955, crowds provoked by a fabricated news story claiming that “Atatürk’s house in Thessaloniki had been bombed” systematically looted homes, businesses, and places of worship belonging to minorities in Istanbul. This event not only caused material loss but also dealt an irreparable blow to the culture of coexistence and the sense of security of minorities.
September 6–7 shows us how groups can turn into a dangerous force. Within crowds, people behave differently than they do alone; responsibility diminishes, risk increases, conscience falls silent. Understanding the dark side of group psychology is important not only for interpreting the past but also for assessing the present and future in a healthy way.

Social Loafing: Decline of Performance in Crowds
“Social loafing” describes the tendency of people to reduce their individual performance when working in groups. In his famous 1913 rope-pulling experiment, Max Ringelmann found that as group size increased, the individual effort per person decreased.
As Rolf Dobelli notes in The Art of Thinking Clearly, this is not limited to physical tasks. The same occurs in mental activities as well. For example, in meetings, as the number of participants rises, individual contributions decline; people fall silent, thinking “someone else will speak.” The larger the group, the lower the performance, eventually stabilizing at the size of a “cheese platter.”

Diffusion of Responsibility: “It Wasn’t Me, It Was All of Us”
Crowds not only weaken performance but also erode the sense of responsibility. In social psychology, this is known as “diffusion of responsibility.”
A historical example is the Nuremberg Trials. Nazi officers accused of crimes against humanity often tried to deflect accountability by saying, “I was only following orders” or “I was commanded to do so.”
A similar mechanism was at play during the September 6–7 Events. Individuals who normally would not resort to violence looted properties and destroyed places of worship under the cover of the crowd’s anonymity. Group identity overshadowed individual conscience.

Risk Shift: The Dangerous Courage of Groups
Another dimension of group psychology is the “risk shift.” Research shows that individuals are more cautious when deciding alone, but within a group they are more likely to choose riskier options.
The reasons include:

• Shared responsibility: The burden of a wrong decision is lighter.
• Reinforcement through similarity: Hearing one’s own risky ideas echoed by others strengthens conviction.
• “We’re all in the same boat”: The perception that risks and their consequences will be shared collectively.

This is especially dangerous in contexts where large-scale decisions are made. In pension funds managing billions, in corporate strategy meetings, or in political decisions concerning national security, risks that individuals would not take alone can easily be embraced collectively.

Application to Corporate Life: Companies as Groups
Companies, institutions, and organizations are essentially large groups. Thus, the mechanisms observed in social psychology—social loafing, diffusion of responsibility, and risk shift—operate in work life as well.

• Meetings: As the number of participants grows, individual contributions shrink. Most people wait silently for others to speak.
• Projects: In large teams, responsibility is diluted, leaving failures without a clear “owner.” This reduces efficiency.
• Strategic decisions: In boardrooms or fund management, risky steps that no individual would assume alone are more easily taken in a group.

Solutions
To minimize these effects in corporate life:

• Make individual achievements visible,
• Form smaller teams,
• Gather independent ideas,
• Develop accountability systems.

“The Destructive Power of Groups”
The 70th anniversary of the September 6–7 Events is an important opportunity to reconsider both the historical and contemporary impacts of group psychology. In crowds, people behave differently than they do alone: lazier, less responsible, and more risk-taking.
Today, companies, institutions, and organizations are also groups, and the same psychological mechanisms operate within them. In strategy meetings, large projects, or collective decisions, groups have a tendency toward risk. But these risks can be reduced: making individual achievements visible, clarifying contributions, and ensuring accountability can bring responsibility back to the forefront.
Highlighting individual conscience and responsibility is the most effective way to blunt the dark side of groups. In this way, it becomes possible to benefit from the creative potential of groups while softening their dangerous aspects.