1. Collective Behaviour, Social Movements, and Social Change
Chapter Twenty

2. The Question
What would you do if you believed that injustice was being committed?
If something you fundamentally believed in was being destroyed?
What actions would you take?
What power do you think you have?
What is your moral responsibility?
Would you go out of your way to make your community better for others?

3. man in tiananmen square 1989

4. Buddhist monk protest South Vietnamese governments prohibition of Buddhists religious practices 1963

5. Outline Collective Behaviour Social Movements Social Movement Theories
Social Change in the Future

6. Collective Behaviour Conditions for Collective Behaviour
Dynamics of Collective Behaviour
Distinctions
Types of Crowd Behaviour
Explanations of Crowd Behaviour
Mass Behaviour

7. Collective Behaviour
Defined: Voluntary, often spontaneous activity that is engaged in by a large number of people and typically violates dominant group norms and values
Contrast to organizational behaviour
Examples: social protests against social problems

8. Conditions for Collective Behaviour
Collectivity: a relatively large number of people who mutually transcend, bypass, or subvert established institutional patterns and structures
Conditions:
Timing
Breakdown in social control mechanism
Structural factors that increase likelihood of a type of response

9. Factors of the Likelihood of Collective Behaviour
Structural Factors
Likelihood of
Collective
Behaviour
Timing
Break down of social Control

10. Dynamics of Collective Behaviour
Acting outside of established norms
Need of immediate communication
Attitudes: individual tend to have attitudes about something but do not do anything about it
Why collectively and not individually?
Strength in numbers

11. Distinctions
Crowds
Defined: a relatively large number of people who are in one another’s immediate vicinity
Masses
Defined: a large number of people who share an interest in a specific idea or issue but are not in one another’s immediate vicinity

12. Types of Crowd Behaviour
Expressive and Acting Crowds
Expressive: Come together to express a strong emotions
Acting: intense and violent
Mob: a highly emotional crowd who are violent against a person, groups or places
Riot: violent crowds with no target
Panic: when people react to a real or perceived threat
Casual and Conventional
Causal: large; happen to be in one place at one time
Conventional: those who come together for a scheduled event
Protest
Not violent; may take the form of civil disobedience (Martin Luther King Jr)

13. Theories of Crowd Behaviour
Contagion Theory
Social unrest and circular reaction
Convergence Theory
Emergent Norm Theory

14. Contagion Theory Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931)
people feel vulnerable and, with anonymity, the crowd transforms people from being rational to being irrational and with a common mind
You will do things in a crowd that you would never deem appropriate to do on your own

15. Social unrest and circular reaction
Robert Parks wanted to understand how are traditional cultural rules broken by Crowd Behaviour?
Social unrest is transmitted by a process of circular reaction—discontent is passed to others and then returns again from whence it began

16. Convergence theory
the shared emotions, goals, and beliefs many people bring to crowd behaviour. These shared elements bring people together
Applied to lynch mobs and environmental protests

18. Emergent Norm Theory
The vitality of social norms in shaping crowd behaviour
The behaviour is not purely random and irrational
Example: the Los Angeles riots of 1992 purposively targeted Korean businesses
Meaning and norms are redefined by the crowd.

19. Mass Behaviour Defined:
a collective behaviour that takes place when people respond to the same event in much the same way (e.g., a rock concert) even though they may be geographically separated.
Types:
Rumours
Gossip
Mass hysteria
Public opinion
Fashions
Fads
Propaganda

20. Mass Behaviour Rumours Unsubstantiated reports on an issue or subject
Gossip
Refers to rumours about the personal lives of others
Mass hysteria
Dispersed collective behaviour that occurs when a large number of people react with strong emotions and self-destructive behaviour

21. Mass Behaviour
Fads
Temporary but widely copied activity enthusiastically followed by large numbers of people. Short term.
Fashions
Currently valued style of behaviour, thinking or appearance
Pierre Bourdieu believes fashion is one-way individuals can express their class differences

23. Mass Behaviour Propaganda
Public Opinion
Political attitudes and beliefs communicated by ordinary citizens to decision makers.
Where are political decisions made at the Tim Horton’s or in the Standing Committees by the Elite?
Propaganda
Information provided by individuals or groups that have a vested interest in furthering their own cause or damaging an opposing one
Power of Persuasion

24. Social Movements
Defined: an organized group that acts consciously to promote or resist change through collective action
Elements:
More likely in democracies
Help excluded groups into political processes
Rely on volunteers

25. Types of Social Movements
Reform
Revolutionary
Religious
Alternative
Resistance

26. Reform Movements Movements that seek to improve society
Work within existing structures
Work to change public policy
Examples: labour movements, animal rights
MADD Mothers Against Drunk Driving

27. Revolutionary Movements
Hope to bring about a total change in society
French(1789), American (1779), or Russian Revolutions (1917)
The Ithaca Buck an attempt to challenge the global capitalist system
Terrorism– calculated unlawful use of physical force or threats of violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, organization, or individual for the purpose of gaining some political, religious, economic or social objective

28. Religious Movements
Inner change focus
Liberation Theology: stresses the role of political action and oriented itself toward the goal of political liberation from poverty and oppression. Sister Geraldine-Rossbrook House
The Social Gospel movement was a prominent Protestant movement in the late 19th-20th century that attempted to apply Christian principles to social problems. Salvation Army

29. Alternative Movements
To seek limited change in some aspects of people’s lives or behaviours
Example:
The Women’s Christian Temperance Union to prevent the use of alcohol
Vegetarianism and the organic food movements

30. Resistance Movements Seek to prevent change
Example: the Pro Life Movement to protect the rights of the unborn

31. Stages in Social Movements
Preliminary stage - wide spread unrest, becoming aware of a problem
Coalescence stage – getting organized to publicize a problem
Institutionalization stage – organizational structure develops.

32. Social Movement Theories
Relative Deprivation
Value-Added
Resource Mobilization
Social Constructionist
New Social Movement

33. Relative Deprivation
Theme: people are not satisfied with their present condition
They may feel when they compare their achievement with those of similarly situated persons and find that they have less than what they deserve

34. Value-Added
Certain conditions must be met for the development of a social movement each step in the production process adds something to the finished product
1) Structural conduciveness
2) Structural strain
3) Spread of generalized belief
4) Precipitating factors
5) Mobilization for action
6) Social control factors

35. Resource Mobilization
Members of a social movement gather, trade, use, and occasionally waste resources such as: money, members’ time, access to the media, property and equipment.
Social movements do not just exist because of widespread unrest but because there are organizations existing that make it possible to express social displeasure.

36. Social Constructionist
A version of symbolic interactionism
Frame analysis from Goffman
Goal: to try to isolate some of the basic frameworks of understanding available in our society for making sense out of events and to analyze the special vulnerabilities to which these frame of reference are subject (Goffman)

37. Social Constructionist
Applied to a social movement:
A grievance needs to be present
Then, these ways of framing it are created:
1) Diagnostic framing
2) Prognostic framing
3) Motivational framing
4) Frame alignment

38. Frame alignment
Framing the social issue is important to create a link between individual interest and the social movement.
Frame bridging
Frame amplification
Frame extension
Frame transformation

39. New Social Movement
Theme: scholars look at a diverse array of collective actions and the manner in which these actions are based on politics, ideology, and culture
Elements:
Personal identity, race, class, gender and sexuality

40. New Social Movement
Ecofeminism- feminists that are concerns with the environment and believe that environmental neglect and abuse is implicit in the patriarchal capitalist business model.
Environmental racism —the belief that a disproportionate number of hazardous facilities are placed in low-income areas populated primarily by people of colour

41. Social Change in the Future
Other factors besides collective behaviour and social movements contribute to change. They include:
The Physical Environment
Population
Technology
Social Institutions

42. Social Change in the Future
Other factors besides collective behaviour and social movements contribute to change. They include:
The Physical Environment
Population
Technology
Social Institutions

43. References
The Tank Man Producer: Anthony Thomas, Cutting Edge
World Changing
Power of Persuasion Nation Achieves (U.S.)

44. Questions
What is the most significant social change that has affected your life? Explain how this social change happened.
Explain the difference between relative depravation and resource mobilization theory.
What factors can influence crowd behaviour?
Explain the stages of social movements give examples of movements that you believe are at the different stages and why?
Give an example of each type of social movement.