1. SOCI 3006 – Collective Behaviour May 2007 Lecture 8

2. 1. Administrative all materials for test are on website password for website is cjrocks

3. 2. General Categories of Collective Behaviour “Collective behaviour may be defined as those forms of social behaviour in which usual conventions cease to guide social action and people collectively transcend, bypass or subvert established institutional patterns and structures” (Turner and Killian, 1987) (a)Violent/Destructive Collective Behaviour mass suicides – usually, hysterical beliefs form the basis, strong group pressures to conform to belief structures, group practices (but do they attract particular personality dispositions?) – Heaven’s Gate group in 1997, Jonestown, Guyana in 1977)

4. 2. General Categories of Collective Behaviour mob violence – normally non-violent people attacking people or property with the goal of destroying, injuring, killing – may be organized or unorganized – associated with interpersonal violence, death  lynchings  Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY Riots – sudden outbreaks, often a ‘venting’ of collective emotion – can be deadly and destructive, or ‘celebration’ riots - often associated with serious property damage  hockey riots  Christie Pits 1933  May Day celebrations in Akron, Ohio, 1994  Chicago Bulls, 1997 riot

5. 2. General Categories of Collective Behaviour (b) Consumers and Collective Behaviour crazes and panics – crazes are usually motivated by financial gain - the Beer Can collecting craze in the 1970’s; Western gear in Japan; chain letters; Elmo; Barbie – panics are motivated by fear, often of financial loss – like the crash of 1929; Nortel fads – the desire to possess, not necessarily for profit – often created by marketers, mass media – dance fads, toy fads (Davey Crocket), game fads (Trivial Pursuit; Monopoly) – on the whole, harmless activities

6. 2. General Categories of Collective Behaviour (c) Hysterias rumors – a piece of information that is not or cannot be verified – often spreading rapidly during periods of anxiety/concern, in the absence of other more reliable information – Mcdonald’s worm-burgers, Colgate/Palmolive, summer camp rumours physical hysteria – a physiological manifestation of collective behaviour – the June Bug phenomenon in 1962; release of the film The Exorcist millenarian groups – belief in the world coming to an end on a given date – either utopian vision or apocalyptic (catastrophic) vision – Miller and the Millerites, 1831

7. 2. General Categories of Collective Behaviour (c) Hysterias sightings and miracles – religious apparitions (Fatima; Sabana Grande, 1953; Thomson, Man.) – also UFO sightings (Rozwell) the airship sightings of 1896 to 1897