Collective Behavior:

Definition and Scope

To be Discussed:
Elementary Forms of Collective
Behaviour
Major forms of Collective
Behaviour
Theories of Collective
Behaviour
The results of Collective
Behaviour

COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR
is a type of social behavior that
occurs in crowds or masses
the mass behavior of a group

Elementary Forms of
Collective Behaviour
Milling
Rumour
Social unrest

Elementary forms of
collective behaviour
Milling
-means

looking for clues to others feelings, such as

sweating, nervousness, and changes in tone of
voice.

Important Effects of
Milling

Four important effects of Milling

First, it sensitizes people to one another.
Second, milling tends to produce a common mood among
the interacting individuals.
Third, milling develops a common image or interpretation
of the situation.
Finally, milling sets in motion the process of redefining the
rules that govern behaviour.

 Rumour
An unverified account or explanation of events
circulating from person to person and pertaining to an
object, event, or issue in public concern.

Rumors have three basic

characteristics

they're transmitted by word of

mouth
they provide "information" about a
person, happening, or condition
they express and gratify the
emotional needs of the community

Three major kinds of situations

where Rumour is Rampant
First, in a social order in which information is,
or is believed to be, strictly controlled by
authorities.
Second, rumour spreads when events threaten
the understandings upon which normal life is
based.
Third, rumour springs up when a strong, shared
incentive to act is blocked in some way, even by
merely the lack of an occasion for action.

Types of Rumors
Pipe dream rumors, which reflect public
desires and wished-for outcomes
Bogie or fear rumors that reflect feared
outcomes
Wedge-driving rumors that intend to
undermine group loyalty or interpersonal
relations

Social unrest
It generally means rioting and general
chaos. This condition, known as social
unrest, can lead to outbursts of violence.
Simply put, this is the disruption of normal
order.

Characteristics of social
unrest

First, there is a general

collective life routines.

impairment

of

Second, people are hyperreactive.

Third,
social
contagiousness.

unrest

is

marked

by

Fourth, social unrest is not specific with

respect to grievances or activities.
Finally, social unrest is perhaps the most
volatile of collective states.

Major forms of
Collective
Behaviour

Major forms of
Collective Behaviour

Responses to disaster
Collective obsessions
Crowds
Panic
Publics and masses

Responses to Disaster
A disaster-stricken community affords
a prototypical situation for collective
behaviour. The lives of persons are
disrupted indiscriminately by these
disasers, and coping with the results of
destruction and disorder is beyond the
capacity of conventional institutions.
The assumption of a reasonably stable
and predictable reality is undermined.

 Collective
Obsession
o

Is a remarkable increase in the frequency

and intensity with which people engage in a
specific kind of behaviour or assert a belief.
o The behaviour with which it is indulged is
ridiculous, irrational, or evil in the eyes of
persons who are not themselves caught up
in the obsession.
o After it has reached a peak, the behaviour
drops off abruptly and is followed by a
counterobsession.

 Crowds
o A crowd is more concentrated in time
and space.
o A concern of the majority of the crowd
is a collaborative goal rather than
parallel individual goals.
o There is more division of labour and
cooperative activity in a crowd than in
collective obsessions.

Types of Crowd
Active Crowds
The active crowd is usually aggressive, such
as a violent mob, though occasionally it acts
to propel members into heroic
accomplishments.
Expressive Crowds
The expressive crowd has also been called
the dancing crowd because its
manifestations are dancing, singing, and
other forms of emotional expression.

 Panic
The word panic is often applied to a
strictly individual, maladaptive
reaction of flight, immobility, or
disorganization stemming from
intense fear. Individual panic
frequently occurs as a unique
individual response without triggering
a similar reaction in others.

 Public and Masses

o The most important distinction between
crowds and publics is that people in the
public recognize that there is a division of
opinion about an issue and are prepared
to interact with a recognition and
tolerance of difference.
o Public is a group of people who (a) are
confronted by an issue, (b) are divided in
their ideas as to how to meet the issue,
and (c) engage in discussion over the
issue.

 Public and Masses

Masses include a wide range of groups.
They include, for instance, people
simultaneously reading the newspaper
advertisement for a department store
sale and simultaneously converging on
the store with similar objects in mind;
but masses also involve people
converging in a disaster or a gold rush
or a mass migration.

Theories of collective
behaviour
Individual motivation theories
Interaction theories
Social change

Individual motivation theories

Frustration and lack of firm
social anchorage are the two most
widely used explanations for individual
participation in collective behaviour of
all kinds.

Emile Durkheim, absence of firm

integration into social groups leaves
the individual open to deviant ideas
and susceptible to the vital sense of
solidarity that comes from participation
in spontaneous groupings.
Erich Fromm attributed the appeal of
mass movements and crowds to the
gratifying escape they offer from the
sense of personal isolation and
powerlessness that people experience
in the vast bureaucracies of modern
life.

Interaction theories
These interaction theories have been
labeled contagion and convergence
theories, respectivelythe former
stressing the contagious spread of
mood and behaviour; the latter
stressing the convergence of a large
number of people with similar
predispositions. Both have sought to
explain why a group of people feel
and act (1) unanimously, (2) intensely,
and (3) differently from the manner in
which they customarily act.

Social change
A final set of theories stresses characteristics
of social organization that generate collective
behaviour. Collective behaviour is commonly
seen
by
sociologists
as
a
normal
accompaniment and medium for social change,
relatively absent in periods of social stability.
With the more or less continuous shifts of values
in any society, emerging values are first given
group expression in collective behaviour; efforts
to revitalize declining values also bring forth
collective behaviour.

The results of collective

behaviour
The variety of effects
SHORT-TERM EFFECTS
CONTINGENCIES
LONG-TERM EFFECTS

SHORT-TERM EFFECTS
The most notable immediate effect of
all kinds of collective behaviour is to
alter the salience of various
problems, issues, and groups in
public awareness.

CONTINGENCIES
First, the nature of the response by authorities
affects the immediate course of the collective
behaviour.
Second, the response of authorities affects
public definitions of the meaning of the collective
behaviour.
A third contingency affecting the aftermath of
collective behaviour concerns the nature and
strategy of the counter-movements or
counterfads that arise.
Finally, the effect of collective behaviour
depends upon the ubiquitous process of
conventionalization.

LONG-TERM EFFECTS
In the long run it is difficult to be sure
whether a particular type of collective
behaviour actually makes a difference or
whether it is merely a shadow cast by
passing
events.
Scattered
collective
behaviour is endemic in every society. But
when there is widespread discontent,
collective behaviour soon becomes a
prominent feature of group life. When there
is a new perspective to give meaning to
discontent, many forms of collective
behaviour appear to become agents of
change.

THE END