As part of my research, I’m look­ing into the psy­chol­ogy of crowds, and what makes some “crowd” expe­ri­ences pos­i­tive, and oth­ers neg­a­tive. I had an expe­ri­ence recently that Joe sug­gested I doc­u­ment here.

In line at Boston Logan, I waited impa­tiently with hun­dreds of other peo­ple, brac­ing myself for the mad rush that hap­pens just before and after the metal detec­tor. You used to be able to put your bags on the con­veyor belt and walk through, but now get­ting through secu­rity involves no fewer than 13 sep­a­rate steps, depend­ing on how you count them:

1. Remove any liq­uids and lap­tops from your luggage.
2. Place your lug­gage on the con­veyor belt.
3. Place your lap­top on the con­veyor belt, in its own bin.
4. Remove your shoes.
5. Remove your jacket.
6. Remove your belt (if any) and empty your pock­ets of every­thing -- wal­let, keys, change -- except for your board­ing pass! You will need that in a moment.
7. Place your shoes, jacket, belt, and pocket con­tents in a bin on the con­veyor belt.
8. Add to that bin a small plas­tic, reseal­able bag which con­tains any liq­uids or lotions that you want to take on the plane with you. Oh, and of those items, not one may exceed 3 fluid ounces. (Note that this step requires exten­sive prepa­ra­tion prior to arriv­ing at the airport.)
9. Wait until a TSA agent gives you a blank stare, which is your indi­ca­tion to pro­ceed through the metal detector.
10. Get scolded by the TSA agent for not hold­ing on to your board­ing pass, as instructed in step 6.
11. Deflect nasty looks given to you by the 8,000 trav­el­ers in line behind you as every­one waits for your board­ing pass to be retrieved from the gray bin.
12. TSA agent now allows you to pass, hav­ing ver­i­fied that you are in pos­ses­sion of a lit­tle scrap of paper that any 5-year-old could have mocked up in MacPaint.
13. Collect all your belong­ings, repack your bag, apply anti-fungal foot cream (aerosol vari­eties pro­hib­ited), get dressed in front of strangers who now hate you, and pro­ceed to gate.

That would be stress­ful enough. But add to it gen­eral anx­i­ety about flight, lack of decent food, sleep, hydra­tion, and other phys­i­cal and emo­tional stresses asso­ci­ated with travel, and most people’s gen­eral mood at this point, in the secu­rity line, is one of unpleas­ant anticipation.

So I’m back at Logan, it’s early, and I just want to make sure I don’t miss my flight. I have pre­pared for all 13 steps the night before. My lotions, liq­uids and gels are appor­tioned and sealed. My shoes are untied, ready for instant slip-off. I’m try­ing not to make eye con­tact with any­one, assum­ing they all feel the same way -- grumpy and dis­tressed -- but it turns out they don’t.

I only know that because Mr. TSA him­self decided we needed a lit­tle refresher course. He approaches, walk­ing along­side us, lift­ing a num­ber of large bot­tles of ver­boten sham­poos and sun­tan lotion into the air. He is lit­er­ally yelling: “THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOUR LIQUIDS. YOU MUST PUT ALL YOUR LIQUIDS INTO A SMALL PLASTIC BAG.” He is five feet away from my face and yelling directly into it. The cor­ri­dor is about 20 feet wide; I think he could use his indoor voice and com­mu­ni­cate more effec­tively. But he con­tin­ues down the line, hit­ting all 13 items on our to-do lists at full volume.

Finally, hav­ing reached the last pas­sen­ger, he shuts up, turns around, and starts head­ing back to his post. And that’s when the hor­rif­i­cally mag­i­cal moment hap­pened: Someone said “thank you.” Thank you! This ver­bally abu­sive author­ity fig­ure has, in my eyes, been noth­ing but rude, obnox­ious, and insult­ing, lec­tur­ing us about things that we should already know. But some­one thanked him for what I inter­preted as abuse. And then another per­son thanked him. And another. And soon, once about ten peo­ple had said “thank you,” he felt oblig­ated to respond with “you’re welcome.”

Did this peo­ple think he was doing them a favor? Did they think he was a hero? Have TSA agents been ele­vated to the myth­i­cal level of fire­fight­ers and first respon­ders? “You can do no wrong. You are keep­ing our coun­try safe. Thank you for everything.”

It was fas­ci­nat­ing to me that any­one would respond this way, and that after the first “thank you,” that oth­ers fol­lowed. What does that say about the crowd’s dynamic relat­ing to this author­ity fig­ure? How can the col­lec­tive emo­tion be so dif­fer­ent from my own? And how can this sort of inter­ac­tion inform our approach to emo­tional designs?