1. Mobs, and Riots, and Legends, oh my!
Collective Behavior
Mobs, and Riots, and Legends, oh my!

2. Defining it Collective Behavior
The relatively spontaneous social behavior that occurs when people try to develop
common solutions to unclear
situations
Collectivities
Difficult to study.
Groups that exhibit collective behavior are called COLLETIVITIES

3. Crowds
A temporary gathering of people who are in close enough proximity to interact.
Casual Crowd – some event captures people’s attentions, least organized, most temporary
Conventional Crowd – gathered for a common purpose (religious service, baseball game, etc.) more structured than casual crowd
Expressive Crowd – no apparent goal or purpose. Rock concert, funeral of a public figure, holiday celebrations. Expressive behaviors that would normally be inappropriate in other social situations
Acting Crowd – Violent crowd. Intense emotions, usually hostile and destructive and focused on a target. Results in violations of established norms

4. Mobs and Riots
Mob – emotionally charged collectivity whose members are united by a specific destructive or violent goal
Usually has leaders who urge the crowd on and enforce conformity
Riot – collection of people who erupt into generalized destructive behavior, resulting in social disorder
Less unified and focused than mobs
Often begins when long-standing tensions are triggered by a single event

5. Panics
Panic – a spontaneous and uncoordinated group action to escape some perceived threat
Fear of being trapped
Mutual cooperation breaks down and norms that govern behavior are lost
Floods, fires, and earthquakes
Can be avoided if a leader emerges who can channel the behavior and direct to logical action
Moral Panic – people become fearful (often irrationally) about behavior that appears to threaten society’s core values
Perfect example: video games cause violence beginning in the 90’s after rash of school shootings

6. Mass hysteria – unfounded anxiety shared by people who can be scattered over a wide geographic area
Involves irrational beliefs and behaviors that spread among the population
Can be unwittingly fueled by media

7. Collective Preoccupations
Involve people who rarely meet, let alone interact, yet engage in similar behavior and share an understanding of the meaning of that behavior.
Fashions, fads, rumors, and urban legends
Fashions – enthusiastic attachments among large numbers of people for particular styles of appearance or behavior
Fad – unconventional object, action, or idea that a large number of people are attached to for a very short period of time
Appeal primarily to young people
Fads allow young people to assert their personal identity
Die out when they uninteresting to the general public or become so widespread that they are no longer “special”

8. URBAN LEGENDS
Stories that teach a lesson and seem realistic, but are untrue.

9. Public Opinion – refers to the collection of differing attitudes that members of a public have about a particular issue
Subject to rapid change
Politics uses polls to identify it for elections
Businesses use it for marketing and analysis

10. Propaganda Organized and deliberate attempt to shape public opinion
Seven techniques of propaganda:
Testimonials – use of endorsements by famous people
Transfer – associate the product or candidate with something the public approves of/disapproves of
Bandwagon – politician or product appeals to the public’s desire to conform (4 out of 5 dentist's agree…)
Name Calling – use of negative labels or images in order to make competitors appear in an unfavorable light
Plain-folks Appeal – appealing the average American (hark working who just wants to do good)
Glittering Generalities – use of words that sound positive but have little real meaning (freedom, democracy, and the American way)
Card Stacking – presenting facts in a way that places products/politicians in a favorable light (presenting stats in a favorable light, ignoring the bad ones)

11. Gallop Polls
1999; 1 in 4 Americans don’t know which country America gained independence from
As far as you know, from what country did America gain its independence following the Revolutionary War?
England/Great Britain/United Kingdom 76%
France 2
Other 3
No opinion 19
100%

12. As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun, or does the sun revolve around the earth?
Earth revolves around the sun 79%
Sun revolves around the earth 18
No opinion 3
100%

14. Contagion Theory (Gustave Le Bon)
Being part of a crowd encourages people to give up individuality to the pull of the group.
Individuals become anonymous and give up personal responsibility.
The crowd becomes a single organism, conventional social norms lose their meaning and, behavior becomes unrestrained.
Problems:
Studies show no indication of a collective mind in crowds
Behavior in crowds is usually not uniform

15. Emergent-Norm Theory (Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian)
People in a crowd are faced with a situation in which traditional norms of behavior do not apply
No clear standards for behavior.
New norms are created by crowd leaders
People will follow along even if they don’t personally agree with the behavior
When a film real breaks in a theater one person stamps their feet. Doesn’t help or fix anything, but people will follow along

16. Value-Added Theory (Neil Smelser)
Mirror of value added theory in economics
Each step adds value from the previous step in production
Each step is necessary for the next step to happen
6 Preconditions
Structural Conduciveness – the surrounding social structure that makes it possible for a collective behavior to occur (recording of Rodney King beating)
Structural Strain – Conditions that put strain on people and encourage them to seek collective means of relief (poverty, overcrowding, discrimination)
Growth and Spread of a generalized belief
Precipitating Factors – triggering mechanisms that set off behavior (officers acquitted of wrong doing)
Mobilization for Action
Social Control - mechanisms in place for preventing or minimizing behavior (national guard called in, curfew)

17. HOMEWORK
Find an example of a collectivity in recent (within the last 6 months) news.
Print our the first page of the article to turn in.
Write a brief explanation of how you think Value-Added Theory applies to the collectivity.