Running head: COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR 1

COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

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There are various characteristics of crowds, as read in the mind of crowds’ books

under chapter one, which talks about the general characteristics of crowds. Crowds are

termed as loose textured groups who vary greatly in behavior and character. There are

different types of crowd: casual crowds are crowds that gather around a specific event, and

interaction is limited among members. Conventional crowds are relatively structured crowds

whose behavior follows an established social norm. Acting crowds focuses on a specific goal

where members act against forces. Expressive crowds meet specifically to let out emotions.

Different norms define the appropriate behavior in a crowd. These norms usually emerge

from the visible deeds of few individuals. The characteristics involve anonymity,

suggestibility, contagion, emotionality, loosely, structured, unpredictable, and impersonality.

Each crowd is unique in different times and situations (Zhan, B., Monekosso, Remagnino,
Velastin & Xu, 2008).

Government is a group of people with the Authority to govern a country. Power is

the capacity to direct or influence the behavior of others, while Authority is the ability to

have the right to give orders, make a decision and enforce obedience. There are three types of

Authority. Traditional Authority is described as a form of leadership whereby the

organization's Authority is tied to traditional customs. Charismatic Authority is termed

resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity or exemplary of a person and the normative

orders revealed by him. Legal-rational Authority is described as a form of leadership in

which the Authority of a ruling regime is largely tied to legal rationality. Functionalists view

Government and politics as a method to enforce norms and regulate conflict. Symbolic

interactions are more interested in the face-to-face aspects of politics and are not interested in

a large structure like the Government. Critical sociologist views the Government and politics

as a framework for making sense of their study, (Bennett, 2018). 

Collective behavior is the kind of activities engaged in by sizable but loosely

organized groups of people. Collective behavior forms include; crowds, mobs, panics, riots,
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disaster behavior, rumors, moral panics, mass hysteria, and fads and crazes. Emergent norm

theory is a theory used to explain collective behavior. The value-added theory is a

functionalist perspective that states that several preconditions must be in place for collective

behavior to happen. The assembling perspective focuses on collective action rather than

collective behavior, addressing the process associated with crowd behavior and the lifecycle

and various classes of gatherings (Hinz & de Polavieja2017).

There are different causes of change. Technology improvement has made life easier.

Technology is a driving force beyond globalization. During globalization, change is steered

by technology. Social institutions have informed the way we teach our children by preparing

them for an industrial job than it was before. The population has a tremendous interrelated

impact on all other aspects of society. Taking an example of increased demand for housing

due to increased population. The environment can bring social change whereby an increase in

populations affects natural disasters hence increasing impacts of that disaster which

eventually cause a social change. Modernization is termed as increasing the amount of

specialization and differentiation of structures in the community, thus changing from an

undeveloped society to a developed, technologically steered society. Modernization has led to

change the old norms or ways of doing and carrying out activities to the recent and decent

way (Huntington, 2017). 

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Reference

Bennett, H. L. (2018). Authority (pp. 75-100). University of Pennsylvania Press.

Hinz, R. C., & de Polavieja, G. G. (2017). Ontogeny of collective behavior reveals a simple attraction

rule. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(9), 2295-2300.

Huntington, S. P. (2017). The change to change: Modernization, development, and politics (pp. 30-

69). Routledge.

Zhan, B., Monekosso, D. N., Remagnino, P., Velastin, S. A., & Xu, L. Q. (2008). Crowd analysis: a

survey. Machine Vision and Applications, 19(5), 345-357.