BEATLEMANIA
Based on original research from the Fab
Four’s visit to Wellington between 21-24
June 1964
A.J.W. Taylor PhD Psychology Department
Abstract
• To objectify the major parameters of crowd and audience reaction ….
• Advance publicity had warned of the ‘mass-hysteria’ to be expected at the sight, sound and lyrics ….. Adolescents anticipated their arrival eagerly, while the authorities were disparaging and somewhat fearful ….
• Findings published in Britain in 1966, in the United States in 1968, and once more in Britain in 1992 by special request to encourage …..
• When writers from those countries mentioned the study recently near the 50th ….seemed interesting to review the accretion of similar studies
…..
Procedure
•
Appraise range of descriptions/definitions
•
Methodology – inclusive, comparative design
•
Method – an amalgam of clinical, naturalistic,
observational, & psychometric features, plus
interview(s) with John Lennon
•
Clinical Honours class exercise - safeguards,
funding
Range of descriptions/definitions
• Paul Johnson (1964) - ‘this apotheosis of inanity…(with
Beatles fans forming) a bottomless chasm of vacuity…. who scream themselves into hysteria, whose vacant faces flicker over the TV screen, are the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures.’
…..definitions
• ‘A condition in which the blood is set in commotion in consequence of an alteration in the vital spirits, whereby fits of intoxicating joy and the propensity to dance are occasioned’ – said the 15th Century Swiss/German polymath
Paracelcus’
Clinical signs/symptoms of hysteria
• Loss of physical functions
• Loss of psycho/sensory functions
• Oblivious to externally imposed controls
• Exhibitors require short-term care and protection
Psychometrics
•
A crudely created Beatlemania/Fan Scale (BS) – 11 items
•
MMPI Hysteria scale – 60 items
•
Maudsley Neuroticism scale – 24 items
•
Cattell’s 16 Personality Factor scales – 156 items
•
Age, gender, living at home/away, law keepers/breakers
Participant recruitment: …
aim
•
A: to invite 400 individuals from crowds greeting the
Beatles on arrival at Wellington airport and massed
outside their Hotel St George, to one of four testing
sessions at VUW five days later
4. Crowd outside Hotel St George
From interview(s) with John Lennon
• The group merged from working/middle classes early in the ‘swinging sixties’
• Did stints in Liverpool and Hamburg, in Rock & Roll tradition of Elvis Pressley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly….
• Came under influence of Brian Epstein & George Martin, and brought Richard (Ringo) Starkey in as drummer
• Created a distinctive beat, composed music, wrote love lyrics, and sharpened their image
• Appealed to the aspirations of youth, in the dawn of what proved to be a strong and pervasive counter-culture attempting to promote love, peace and liberation
Concert build-up
•
Two bands in preliminary non-stop ‘work-up’ with
psychedelic lighting effects
•
Induced audience arousal, hand-clapping
•
Mayhem erupted when Beatles appeared for final 20
minutes
•
Sustained fever-pitch intensity over throbbing beat
•
Security guards/police kept busy
Clinical observations/overview
•
No pathological signs of hysteria sufficient to
warrant a clinical diagnosis and referral for
psychological treatment…….
•
……….but sufficient indicators of untoward
behaviour to warrant a combination of
Psychometric response
•
Method A: Students handed out 85 invitations for testing
(36 keen v 47 not), but only 10 people came …
•
Alt. Method B: Four colleges and a teachers’ college
responded with 336 participants between ages of 15 and
20 in a total of 10 testing sessions
•
Validity checks – observations to tape-recording of Beatle
music, auditory/verbal exchanges between subjects,
Groupings for inter-comparison
•
Separation of top 50 participants (scoring 16 +) and
bottom 50 (scoring 0-5) on Beatle/Fab Scale, and a
middle group of 122 (scoring 8-12)
Conclusions
• Beatlemania was primarily a reaction of adolescent females to the considerable direct and indirect musical, psychological, social and commercial pressures placed on them
Conclusions (contd.)
•
The audience reactions could be construed as
reflecting a) a passing phase of personality development,
b) the common need for generational independence, and
c) the chance to try to create a less hidebound society ….
•
Males might be more aroused if female musical
groups were in the limelight ……
Independent replication still needed
•
As the
Sine qua non
to validate or negate the
findings, also:
- to improve methods adopted
- to elaborate the dimensions
- to reflect on the consequences……
Taylor, Antony. (in press). THE 1964
Breaking news
•
UCL psycho-physiologists Trimble, Mathias and
Owens found two subjects (opera buff
Stephen Fry and opera novice Alan Davies)
gave similar primitive autonomic reactions to
a dramatic passage in Verdi’s
Simon
Bocconegra
(accessed 1/8/2014 from
New groups evoking audience reactions
worth studying…..
‘UNLOCKING THE TRUTH’ – a New York heavy-metal trio of 13 year old schoolboys commanding attention – Cherry
Party/Sony recordings
‘IN HEARTS WAKE’ – a Byron Bay quintet, presenting ‘a fusion of alternative hardcore, powerfully interwoven with thought
Most recent tangential references
• Reddish, P., Fischer, R., & Bulbula, J. (2013). Let’s dance together: synchronicity, shared intentionality and
cooperation. PLOS ONE, 8, e71182.
• Sutton, J. (2014). For those psychologists about to rock. The Psychologist, 27, 5, 320-323.
