Crowd behaviour is an emotional issue

1

• Crowd behaviour is an emotional issue
• Some see them as agents of change
• Some see them as unruly mobs
• A crowd is any group which performs collective
  action
• As if one thing with a purpose
• These actions can be of any character
• Celebration
• Mourning
• Anger
• Satisfaction

2

• Crowds can vary in many respects
• Size
• Type of leadership (defined or loose)
• Homogeneity
• Degree of manipulation
• Many others!
• In general, people have a negative view of crowds
• Seen as primitive, destructive
• Media feeds into this perception
• Mob mentality view is quite common
• Permits required to form crowds (they are
  dangerous?)

3

• Crowds are interesting to psychologists
• Occurs in the middle of the individual-group
  levels
• How do so many people behave in a similar without
  overt co-ordination?
• Many psychologists have tried to explain how
  crowds work
• We will look at several explanations for this
  phenomenon

4

• The Classical view (Le Bon, 1895)
• Le Bon collected the views of several earlier
  authors
• Basic idea being in a crowd transforms you
• Proposes the psychological law of the mental
  unity of crowds
• A collective mind that forms spontaneously
• Different from the normal mind
• Affects thought, emotion, and action

5

• LeBons theory
• Crowds are irrational / primitive, dominated by
  unconscious elements
• Being in a crowd affects you
• Homogeneity of action
• Capacity for violence increased
• Reduction responsibility
• Lowering of the intellectual
• Exaggerated emotions (easily swayed by rumours,
  images, etc)

6

• How does the collective mind take over someone
  joining the crowd?
• Anonymity causes a sense of power
• Emotions, images etc spread via contagion
• Leads to an increase in suggestibility (swayed by
  simple images etc)
• The central idea is regression to a barbaric
  state
• change of motivation to the more primitive
• To the level of women, children and savages

7

• Being in a crowd is like being hypnotised
• LeBon thought the spinal cord took over
• Le Bons book was very influencial
• Bestseller when released
• Influenced Freud, Hitler, etc.
• Spread into lay thought
• Most people still believe some form of this idea
  about crowds
• Sees no good elements in a crowd
• Crowd Mob

8

• Criticism of Le Bon
• Hardly a scientific work
• Le Bon was a member of the ruling elite
  explaining the lower peons
• No method no research, no subjects, no
  observation
• Only seems to apply to a small set of crowds
• What about peaceful crowds?
• Le Bons theory no longer used by psychologists
• Some Lebonian thought still hangs around

9

• Deindividuation theory
• American psychologists look at the crowd in the
  1960s-1970s
• Zimbardo (1969),Diener (1980)
• Vietnam war era -- many protests, some violent
• A group of theories, slight variations on a basic
  theme
• All share the notion of deindividuation
• Reduction in self-awareness/ self-control
• Occurs automatically on being in a crowd

10

• When you join a crowd
• You are perceptually immersed (sights, sounds,
  dancing, etc)
• Leads to an increase in arousal
• Leads to attention shifting to the outside (away
  from the self reduced self-monitoring)
• Leads to more responsiveness to emotional cues,
  lack of planning impulsivity
• You are now in a state of deindividuation
• Will continue until arousal decreases and
  attention shifts again

11

• Deindividuation is both
• The process and
• The product
• Deindividuation is seen as an altered state of
  consciousness
• Greater feeling of togertherness with the group
• Time seems to pass faster
• Concentration on now
• Disinhibition which can lead to amoral behaviour

12

• You are blocked from monitoring yourself
• Loss of self-control can lead to aggression,
  violence etc
• Derived from observations of real crowds
• Chanting, singing, etc common
• Evidence for increase in arousal
• Only some crowds turn violent
• Post-hoc reports of a different mental state

13

• Criticisms of deindividuation theory
• A bit too similar to Le Bon
• Being in a crowd transforms you into a less
  responsible creature
• Still explains crowds as destructive or dangerous
  things
• Has a fair deal of empirical support
• One of the most influencial of the modern theories

14

• Le Bons theory and deindividuation theory are
  reductionistic
• lay the blame on the individual
• contagion being in a crowd is like a disease
• Occurs automatically
• The crowd is essentially still seen as an
  irrational mass
• Le Bon regression
• Deindividuation self-control is blocked
• Much evidence against this idea
• Even violent crowds target specific groups, etc

15

• A different take on crowds emergent theories
• Focus on the crowd as a group entity
• Crowds are seen to emerge from particular
  conditions
• Narrow conditions (rumours, milling, etc)
• Wider conditions (unrest deprivation, etc)
• The central process is conformance
• People tend to behave in accordance with social
  norms

16

• Reminder a norm is a shared set of information
  in a group
• Affects behaviour
• Affects beliefs
• Affects social perceptions (justice, prejudice,
  etc)
• In emergent theory, crowds are seen as situations
  which cause new norms to emerge
• Each crowd situation is unique
• Norms are defined as you go along
• Individuals behave communally due to
• social pressure to conform
• desire to conform to the group

17

• Opposite of contagion theories
• Contagion uniform, anonymous, excitable,
  uncontrolled
• Emergent communicating, socially defined, with
  prescribed limits to behaviours
• How does communality spread then?
• Not through contagion
• Through rumours

18

• What makes rumours special?
• Products of interest and ambiguity (hear what you
  want to)
• Certain things are included, others left out
• Define a relevant collective definition of whats
  happening
• Rumours communicate the new norms
• These norms emerge because none others seem to
  apply to collective action

19

• Smelsers value added theory (1962)
• An example of an emergent norm theory
• You begin with particular conditions
• People want change of a social structure
• This leads to a situation of strain
• A new norm then arises
• A belief arises that the change cannot occur via
  normal channels (generalized belief)

20

• The existence of the norm then drives the crowd
• Game theory another example
• Special branch of maths used by economists
  political scientists
• People choose targets/actions based on
  const-benefit decisions
• The more each person thinks the others will
  support him, the more likely the actions are

21

• What can we say about emergent theories?
• Less deterministic than contagion theories
• Crowd behaviour occurs with rational people who
  make decisions
• Crowd beaviour is seen to have purpose
• No more rampaging random mob
• Crowds are not mindless
• Self-controlling, self-justifying structures

22

• Social Psychology does the crowd
• Reminder a persons identity tends towards the
  social side when
• categories become salient
• You categorize yourself in terms of these
  categories
• When you self-categorize, you adopt properties of
  the group
• Power differences
• Perceptions of justice, legitimacy, etc

23

• Crowd action occurs when
• Power relations are seen as illegitimate
• No possibility of social mobility is evident
• Under these conditions, crowd behaviour is used
  as a means of addressing social inbalances
• Still left with things to explain
• How does leadership work in crowds
• Who sets the limits on behaviour?

24

• Reicher explains this
• It has to do with norms
• We self-stereotype into a particular category
• We use the information from the stereotype to
  tell us how to behave
• BUT crowd situations are often novel and
  unfamiliar
• may not have a norm, or may not know which to use

25

• Answer we look to see what other people are
  doing
• Look for exemplary members
• Those who most closely fit the stereotype
• Observe the behaviour and induce what we should
  be doing
• The exemplary members are not leaders (but they
  could be)
• Simply used as guides to how to act