6&7 Why do groups form? Sigmund Freud, born on May 6, 1856, tackled this question in his essay “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” (1921) and concluded that the answer is love. His work borrowed from and critiqued the successful book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (published originally in French in 1895) by social scientist and philosopher Gustave Le Bon, who was born on May 7, 1841. Le Bon, even before Freud, was a great popularizer of theories of the unconscious. His influential writings on the collective mind and on propaganda techniques drew careful study by fascist dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

28–30 Exciting advances in ge­netics and in cognitive and developmental sciences are constantly reshaping our views of how learning happens in the brain. The International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) fosters mutual exchange between the neurosciences and the educational system. Insights into the brain’s learning process can inform the way educators teach and evaluate their students. And results from the classroom can in turn help identify new testable hypotheses for researchers. The society’s second biennial conference will bring together scientists, teachers and policy makers from around the globe.
Philadelphia
www.imbes.org/conference2009/conf09.html

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