Introduction. By the end of the 19th century the society had to adapt to new threats -namely, the increase in numbers and activity of the proletariat masses and the wide spread of socialist and anarchist ideas. Subsequently, many researchers concentrated their study on characteristics of crowds. Scipio Sighele and Henry Fournial were pioneers in this field. Theoretical Basis. The paper describes two concepts whose introduction started studying crowds in European psychological research. Among the main issues considered by Scipio Sighele and Henry Fournial were: characteristics of the crowd as a social institution, its properties, activation factors, characteristics of leaders, personality changes within the crowd, and the problem of criminal liability for mass crimes. The paper presents an innovative view of the origins of the excessive generalization of the ‘crowd’ concept, which manifested itself in its uncritical acceptance for defining a number of social associations, as well as wrongfully attributing characteristics of individual women to the crowd as the subject of mass actions. Results. The paper ascertains that representatives of the anthropological and criminological approach maintain a clearly distorted perception of crowds, which might have determined the critical attitude towards new science of random and temporary social associations. Discussion. A distinct trend towards isolated cognitive constructs and almost complete disregard for the past research inevitably contribute to a distorted understanding of the ‘crowd’ phenomenon in modem social psychology of spontaneous groups and associations. Revisiting and reintegrating the ideas of researchers of the past seem to be a necessary precondition for developing a holistic approach to this problem.