Group Behavior

Mac’s success in field work is due to his understanding of how to motivate men and get them to work as a group for a common goal. When Lisa is giving birth in London’s tent at the pickers’ jungle, Mac deliberately gets all of the men involved in preparations for the birth, not only giving each man a sense of individual ownership in the outcome of the endeavor, but also giving the group a sense of accomplishment from having achieved something by working together. Throughout the story Mac talks to Jim about the effect that incidents of violence have on the men and about using the anger generated by those incidents to unite the men and stir them into responding as a group.

In the conversation between Mac and Burton in the orchard, Burton expresses his belief that a mob is a unique creature, fundamentally...