COLLECTIVE

Behavior
Fe Atanacio-Blas
IE-Arts
1. To understand the definition of collective
behaviour (CB) as opposed to social group.
2. To be familiar with the different forms of CB
such as crowd, collectivities, mass
behaviour, fads, fashion, mass hysteria and
panic.
3. To discuss the theories of collective
behaviour
4. To analyse the different types of social
movements

Objectives
CollectiveBehavior –activity involving a
large number of people that is unplanned,
often controversial, and sometimes
dangerous.
 REPREHENSIBLE
RISKY
HIGHLY EMOTIONAL

IRRATIONAL
CONTAGIOUS
REVOLUTIONARY

DEVIANT
SPUR OF THE MOMENT RADICAL

DANGEROUS
HARMFUL

SPONTANEOUS
Collective behavior is complex and difficult
to study for three reasons:

1. Collective behavior is diverse.

2. Collective behavior is variable.
3. Much collective behavior is transitory.

Studying Collective Behavior

Collectivity, a large number of people whose
minimal interaction occurs in the absence of
well defined and conventional norms.
Collectives are two types:
A localized collectivity refers to people
physically close to one another, as in the
case of crowds and riots.
A dispersed collectivity or mass behavior
involves people who influence one another
despite being spread over a large area.

Collectivities
1. People in collectivities have little or no
social interaction.
2. Collectivities have no clear boundaries.
3. Collectivities generate weak and
unconventional norms.

Three Key Differences on how

collectivities differ from social groups
 Crowd – a temporary gathering of people
who share a common focus or attention
who influences one another.
Herbert Blumer (1969) identified four
categories of crowds:
1. A casual crowd – a loose collection of
people who interact a little.

Localized Collectivities : Crowds

HERBERT
BLUMER
(1969)
2. A conventional crowd – results from
deliberate planning, as illustrated by a
country auction, a college lecturer, or a
presidential inauguration.
3. An expressive crowd forms around an event
with emotional appeal, such as religious
revival, a rock band concert.
CASUAL CROWD
CONVENTIONAL
EXPRESSIVE CROWD
4. An acting crowd is a collectivity motivated
by an intense, single minded purpose, such
as an audience rushing the doors of a
concert hall, or fleeing from a mall after
hearing gunshots.
ACTING CROWD
Mob – a highly emotional crowd that
pursues a violent or destructive goal.

Lynching Mobs – most notorious example

of mob behavior in the United States.

Lynch Mobs – typically composed of poor

whites who felt threatened by competition
from freed slaves.

Mobs and riots

MOB
LYNCHING MOB
 A highly energized crowd with no particular
purpose is riot, a social eruption that is
highly emotional, violent, and undirected.
A riot usually has no clear goals, except
perhaps to express dissatisfaction. The cause
of most riots is some long standing anger or
grievance; violent action is ignited by some
minor incident that cause people to start
destroying property and harming other
persons.
PRISON RIOT
Crowds, mobs, and social change
Explaining Crowd Behavior

Contagion Theory
French sociologistGustave Le Bon(1841-
1931) – crowds have a hypnotic influence on
their members. Shielded by the anonymity
found in large numbers, people forget about
personal responsibility and give in to the
contagious emotions of the crowds.
GUSTAVE
LEBON
Convergence theory holds that crowd
behavior comes not from the crowd itself
but from the particular people who join in.
From this point of view, a crowd is a
convergence of like minded individuals.

Convergence theory says the opposite,

claiming that people who wish to act in a
certain way come together to form
crowds.

Convergence theory
Ralph Turner – Lewis Killian (1987)
developed the emergent norm theory of
crowds dynamics. These admit that social
behavior is never entirely predictable but
if similar interest draw people into a
crowd, distinctive patterns of behavior
may emerge.
Crowd begin as collectivities containing
people with mixed interest and motives.

Emergent norm theory

Dispersed collectivities:
Mass Behavior
Mass Behavior is refers to collective behavior
among people spread over a wide geographic
area.
RUMOR and GOSSIP
Rumor – unconfirmed information that
people spread informally, often by word of
mouth.
 1. Rumor thrives in a climate of uncertainty.

 2. Rumor is unstable

 3. Rumor is difficult to stop.

 GOSSIP – rumor about people’s personal affairs.

Charles Horton Cooley explained that rumor involves
some issue many people care about, but gossip interest
only a small circle of people who know a particular
person. That is why rumors spread widely but gossip
tends to be localized.

Rumor has three main characteristics:

PublicOpinion – widespread attitudes about
controversial issues.
Propaganda – information presented with
the intention of shaping public opinion.
We offer information to enlighten others;
Political speeches, commercial advertising,
and even some college lectures may include
propaganda in an effort to steer people
toward thinking or acting in some specific
way.

Public opinion and propaganda

Fashion – is a social pattern favored by a
large number of people.

( Higher rates of social mobility also cause

people to use their appearance to make a
statement about themselves. The German
sociologist Georg Simmel explained that rich
people usually stand out as the trendsetters,
with plenty; with plenty of money to spend on
luxuries, they attract lots of attention.

Fashion and fads

Fad – is an unconventional social pattern that
people embrace briefly but enthusiastically.

How do fads differ from fashions? Fads

capture the public imagination but quickly
burn out. Because fashions reflect basic
cultural values like individuality and sexual
attractiveness, they tend to say around for a
while. Therefore, a fashion but rarely fad
becomes a more lasting part of popular
culture.
Panic – form of collective behavior in which
people in one place react to a threat or
other stimulus with irrational, frantic, and
often self destructive behavior.

Mass Hysteria or Moral Panic – a form of

dispersed collective behavior in which
people react to a real or imagined event
with irrational and even frantic fear.

Panic and mass hysteria

It is an event, generally unexpected, that
caused extensive harm to people and
damage to property. Disaster are of three
types. Flood, hurricanes, earthquakes, and
forest fires are all examples of natural
disaster. A second type is the
TECHNOLOGICAL DISASTER, which is
widely regarded as an accident but is more
accurately a failure to control technology.

disasters
 It is an organized activity that
encourages or discourage social change.

TYPES of SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Alternative Social Movements – the least
threatening to the status quo because
they seek limited change in only a part of
the population. Their aim is to help certain
people alter their lives.

Social movement
Redemptive Social Movements – also target
specific people, but they seek radical change.

Revolutionary Social Movements – the most

extreme of all, seeking transformation of an
entire society. Sometimes pursuing specific
goals, sometimes spinning utopians dreams,
these social movements reject existing social
institutions as flawed in favor of a radically
new alternative.
It is a process of trying to convince the public
and public officials of the importance of joining
a social movements to address a particular
issue.

DEPRIVATION THEORY – holds that social

movements seeking change arise among
people who feel deprived.
Relative Deprivation is a perceived disadvantage
arising from specific comparison.

Claims making
Mass – Society Theory
William Kornhauser’s mass – society theory
argues that social isolated people seek out
social movements as a way to gain a sense
of belonging and importance.
Culture Theory-the recognition that social
movements depend not only on material
resources and the structure of political power
but also on cultural symbols.
Resource Mobilization Theory
Points out that no social movements is likely
to succeed, or even get off the ground –
without substantial resources, money,
human labor, communication, aces to media
etc.

STRUCTURAL STRAIN THEORY

1. Structural Conduciveness

2. Structural Strain
3. Growth and spread of an explanation

4. Precipitating Factors

5. Mobilization for action

6. Lack of social concern

Socialmovements arise in capitalist societies
because the capitalist economic system fails to
meet needs of the majority of people.

Social movements arise as a response to such

conditions. Workers organize to demand
higher wages, citizens rally for a health care
that protects anyone, and people march in
opposition to spending billions to fund wars of
social welfare progams.

Political economy theory

“ New social movements theory suggest
that recent social movements in the post
industrial societies of North America and
Western Europe had a new focus.

New social movements theory

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