Collective

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Collective Behavior
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• Collective behavior
• activities involving large number of people
• often spontaneous
• typically in violation of established social
  norms
• based on limited social interaction
• no clear social boundaries
• no common identity

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Crowds Temporary Gathering of People Who Share
Common Focus of Attention Members Influence One
Another

• HERBERT BLUMMER Identified 4 types, 5TH added
  later
• CASUAL CROWD ie people on beach
  loose
  collection of people
• CONVENTIONAL CROWDie classroom
  meets for specific purpose
• EXPRESSIVE CROWD ie concert/sports event
  emotional appeal event
• ACTING CROWDie fleeing a fire
  collectivity fueled by intense,
  single-minded purpose
• PROTEST CROWD ie sit-in, march, strike, boycott

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When Acting Crowds Turn Violent

• Mob
• Emotional crowd that pursues violent
  or destructive goal
• Lynch mob
• Riots
• Social eruption that is highly emotional, violent
  undirected
  
• after Katrina

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Theories of Crowd Behavior

• Contagion theory
• Convergence theory
• Emergent-norm theory

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• Contagion Theory Gustave Le Bons
• Crowds exert hypnotic influence over their
  members, people surrender to collective mind
• members rid themselves of inhibitions and act out
  
• crowd gtlife of its own
• Critical evaluation
• Not necessarily irrational
• Specific individuals take leadership

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• Convergence theory
• Motivations are brought to crowd by individual
  members, not vice versa
• Crowdsgtconvergence of like-minded people
• Crowd doesnt generate action, rather members
  stimulate action of crowd
• ie groups concerned about crime
• Critical evaluation
• People do things in
  crowd they would not do alone
• Risky Shift Phenomenon
• Crowds can intensify sentiment simply by creating
  critical mass of like-minded people

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• Emergent-norm theory Turner Killians
• People have mixed interests
• In less stable crowds (expressive, acting, and
  protest), norms may be vague or
  changing
• one does something and others jump on bandwagon
  
• people make their own rules as they go along
• Critical evaluation
• Symbolic-interaction approach that points
  out that people
  take on different roles

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Mass Behavior

• Collective behavior among people dispersed over
  wide geographical area
• Types include
• Rumor and gossip
• Public opinion
• Propaganda
• Panic
• Mass hysteria
• Fads and fashions

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Rumor and Gossip

• Rumor unsubstantiated information people spread
  informally, often by word of mouth
• Thrives in climate of ambiguity
• Unstable
• Difficult to stop
• Gossip personal affairs of others
• Concerns small circle of people
• Rumors spread widely, gossip more localized
• Used to praise or scorn someone
• Used to raise ones standing or keep in their
  place

11
Public Opinion Propaganda

• Public opinion widespread attitudes about
  controversial issues
• Any given issue from 210 of Americans report
  they hold no opinion
• Is this due to ignorance or indifference?
• Not everyones opinion carries same weight
• Experts in field
• Propagandainformation presented
  with intention of shaping public opinion
• Thin line between info propaganda
• Not all propaganda is false

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Panic Mass Hysteria

• Panic
• Localized collective behavior by which people
  react to perceived threat or other stimulus with
  irrational, frantic, and often self-destructive
  behavior
• Mass hysteria
• Dispersed collective behavior by which people
  respond to real or imagined event often with
  irrational and even frantic fear

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Fashions and Fads

• Fashions
• Social pattern favored at time by large of
  people
• Fashion characterizes all forms of art
• Traditional style gives way to changing fashion
• Can trickle down through less expensive copies
• Conspicuous Consumption Veblens Theory-
  people buy expensive products to
  show-off wealth
• Fads
• Unconventional social pattern people embrace
  briefly but enthusiastically
• Sometimes called crazes