born May 7, 1841, Nogent-le-Rotrou, France
died Dec. 13, 1931, Marnes-la-Coquette
French social psychologist.
After receiving a doctorate in medicine, he traveled and wrote books on anthropology, but his interests later shifted to social psychology. In The Crowd (1895) he argued that the personality of the individual in a crowd becomes submerged and that the collective crowd mind comes to dominate.