Sociology – Chapter 21

How the crowd transforms the individual

Collective behavior extraordinary activities• Carried out by groups of people• Examples: lynching, rumors, panics, urban legends• Charles MacKay

– MacKay noticed people “when mad” and did “disgraceful and violent things” when formed in a crowd

– People have a “herd mentality”• Gustave Lebon

– People feel anonymous in crowds– People feel less accountable for what they do in crowds– People develop feelings of invincibility and think they could do anything– Collective mind: Gustave’s term for the tendency of people in a crowd to fee,

think and act in extraordinary ways

How the crowd transforms the individual (cont.)

• Robert Park– Circular reaction: Robert Park’s term for a back-and-

forth communication between the members of a crown, whereby a “collective impulse” is transmitted• Collective impulse dominates all members of the crowd

• Herbert Blumer– Identified five stages that precede what he called an

acting crowd– Acting crowd: an excited group moving towards a goal

• Models today’s police manuals on crowd behavior

Blumer’s 5 Stages of an Acting Crowd

• Five Stages of an Acting Crowd1. Tension or unrest (people become apprehensive,

which makes them vulnerable to rumors and suggestions)

2. Exciting event (an event occurs)3. Milling (people talk about the exciting event)4. A common object of attention (attend forms around

the event)5. Common impulses (people form an agreement

about the event

A SHORT Time to Ponder:

• Why do you think people behave differently in a collective setting?

• Why do you think people feel less responsible for their actions during collective behavior?

• How do you think the collective mindset of a person comes to be?

The Contemporary View: Rationality of the Crowd

• Everyone is collected in a mob in is organized (not chaotic)– Minimax strategy – people make effort to

minimize their costs and maximize their rewards• Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian– Emergent norms – idea that people develop new

norms to cope with a new situation• used to explain crowd behavior• In a group, not normal behavior can become normal

Emergent Norms

1. ego involved – people feel personal stake in the unusual event

2. concerned – personal interest in the event, but care less than the ego-involved

3. insecure – care little about the matter, but they join the crowd because it gives them power

4. curious spectator – care little about the issue, but they are inquisitive

5. exploiters – don’t care about the event, but their for their own purpose

A SHORT Time to Ponder

• How could collective behavior involve unusual norms?

• How does Pettie’s mob include the different players in a collective group?

• Do you agree with the analysis of these 5 groups? Do you think they should take one away? Add a category? Why?

Forms of Collective Behavior

• Riots• Rumors• Panics• Mass hysteria• Moral panics• Fads & Fashions• Urban legends

Forms of Collective Behavior: Riots• Riots – violent crowd behavior directed at people and/or

property– Who: any group– Causes: frustration & feelings of deprivation

• Precipitating events bring up all the feelings to a boiling point and it bursts or erupts in collective violence

– Example: A while police officer in Los Angeles was caught on video beating an African American traffic violator.• The case went to trial (for beating the man), and was found not guilty.

– Jury: 11 whites, 1 Asian• Anger led to people setting fires (rioting)

– 54 people died,– 2,328 insured – 4,000 fires set to properties

Forms of Collective Behavior: Rumors

• Rumors – unfounded information spread among people– About: Rumors deal with a subject that is

important to an individual, and they replace ambiguity with some form of certainty

– Example: Disney and supposed subliminal messaging (The Little Mermaid containing a bishop with a boner)

Forms of Collective Behavior: Panics

• Panic (condition of being so fearful that one cannot function normally and may even flee)– People react to widespread anxiety about world conditions with

anxiety– Many times influenced by media– Most times people are frightened but not in a panic– Panic can be caused because of rumors– Seeing people panic causes others to panic– Not everyone panics: parents often help children, men often women in

disasters (Example: fire)– In life threatening situations, when panic is expected, there is actually

order• Many works take responsibility to help people when on the job

Forms of Collective Behavior: Mass Hysteria

• Mass hysteria (imagined threat that causes physical symptoms among a large number of people)– Explained by saying “it happens”– Mass hysteria follows basic principles of human behavior– Happens in many cultures– Does not have a found explanation for cause

• Example 1: tarantula bits in Italy hundreds of years ago

• Example 2: people sick after drinking Coke in France and Belgium

Forms of Collective Behavior: Moral Panics

• Moral panics (a fear that grips a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society, followed by hostility, sometimes violence, toward those thought responsible)– Fueled by the mass media and center around a sense of

danger, and/or by rumor– Fed by rumors and thrive on uncertainty and anxiety

• Example: In 1990 a rumor swept the country that thousands of kidnapped children were sold to Satanist who ritually killed them.– How would you react?

Forms of Collective Behavior: Fads and Fashions

• Fads (novel form of behavior that briefly catches people’s attention)– there are many forms of fad• Craze (a short and intense fad) – Ex. Tickle Me Elmo

dolls and Beanie Babies• Fashion (a fad that lasts, such as furniture & clothing)

• What are some common fads that you know?

Forms of Collective Behavior: Urban Legends

• Urban legends (stories with an ironic twist that are usually not true– Jan Brunvand • passed from “friend to friend”• Gain credibility by naming specific people or events• Urban legends = Modern morality stories (teaches

moral lesson about life)

• What are some urban legends that you know?

Social Movements

• Social movement (a large group of people who are organized to promote or resist some social change)

• Famous Examples– Abolitionist (anti-slavery) crusade– Civil rights movement– White supremacist– Woman's movement– Animal rights movement– Environmental movement

Social Movements: Motivations

• Proactive social movement – Change something in society

• Reactive social movement– Fight social change

• Social movement organization (an organization people develop to further the goals of a social movements)– Head social movements– Examples: NAACP, KKK

Types of Social Movements

• Alternative – change one specific thing about people• Redemptive – change people totally• Reformative – change specific aspect of society• Transformative – everything in society• Millenarian – change something based on the prophecy

of coming social upheaval• Tranformational – change on condition around the

world– New type of social movement– Metaformative – changing everything

A SHORT Time to Ponder

• Is all social change positive?• Is social change good for the world?• Do groups like the NAACP and KKK even out?

Tactics of Social Movements

• Levels of Membership and Publics (6 levels)1. “The inner core”

– Tactics chose largely depend on the predisposition and backgrounds of the inner core

2. “the committed”3. “the less committed”4. “the sympathetic public”

1. Recruitment ground

5. “hostile public”6. “indifferent public”

• Public (in this context, a dispersed group of people relevant to a social movement)

Tactics of Social Movements

• Relationship to authorities– Institutionalized – authorities accept the

movement • Influences whether movement peaceful or violent

• Other factors– Friendship– Race-ethnicity– Size of town

A SHORT Time to Ponder

• How would you react if your authorities approved of a violent movement?

• Would you be willing to join a movement if your friends or family joined?

Why People Join Social Movements• William Kornhauser

– Mass society theory (an explanation for why people participate in a social movement based on the assumption that the movement offers them a sense of belonging)• Mass society (industrialized, highly bureaucratized, impersonal society)

• Alexis de Tocqueville– Relative Deprivation theory (in this context, the belief that people join social

movements based on their evaluations of what they think they should have compared with what others have)

• James Jasper and Dorothy Nelkin– Moral issues and ideological commitment

• Agent provocateur (someone who joins a group in order to spy on it an to sabotage it by provoking its members to commit extreme acts)

• People most commonly join a social movement because they have friends and acquaintances already in it.

Success and Failure of Social Movements

• Stages of Social Movements1. Initial unrest and agitation2. Resource mobilization3. Organization4. Institutionalization5. Organizational decline / possible resurgence

• A rocky road to success– Five stages do not work unless the movement is very

broad

A SHORT Time to Ponder

• What changes could be made to make the stages work?

• What movement would you think would be successful in using these steps?

• When has a social movement been successful? How were they successful?