My experience so far with many social collectives at various levels have convinced me that in any social collective about 70-80% of its members unconsciously obey its respective collective ego, which is also known as culture or mentality. And each social collective and its "law-abiding" members seem to emit energy that is often unique to them.
I have long suffered from the negative energy of a certain social collective. It was enough for me to spend one week or even less to absorb its negative energy. But I was seldom infected with it when I met and interacted with its members individually though I did sense it. It generally took me several days to restore my previous state.
After I started learning Chassidus, I started to notice something strange - I stopped absorbing the negative energy of this social collective even after spending one week in its midst! I don't know exactly what teaching and/or practice of Chassidus have come to serve as a kind of energy shield protecting me from the effect of this negative energy.
But this energy shield doesn't seem to be powerful enough. It works for passive negative energy but not for active negative energy, which characterized another social collective and many of its members. It's still enough for me to meet and interact even with one individual to become affected by his aggressive.
Recently I've also noticed another important difference between these two types of negative energy. The negative energy of this social collective can become far greater than the sum of the negative energy of its members. I haven't noticed this in the first social collective mentioned above.