Chapter 13 - Collective Behavior and Social Movements

Collective Behavior

Refers to group behaviour that is relatively spontaneous, unstructured, and unconventional in nature.

• Spontaneous and unstructured in the sense that it is unplanned and does not take a specific form.

• It is unconventional in that it generally lies outside what is considered normative.

• Less predictable and less institutionalized.

• Last shorter than social movements.

• Have no identifiable leader.

Crowd & Four Types

A temporary gathering of people in the same place at the same time.

Herbert Blumer (1969) distinguished four main types of crowds:

1. Casual Crowd

2. Conventional Crowd

3. Expressive Crowd

4. Acting Crowd (Protest)

Casual Crowd

A gathering of people who by proximity alone happen to be in the same location at the same time.

Do not originate for any intended larger purpose or shared interest, they are not a focal point for collective behaviour.

Engage in rule-abiding individual (and even parallel) forms of conventional behaviour.

• For example, several individual families might be in the same park on the same day at the same time; some might be having lunch, others might be playing games, and others might be taking a walk.

Conventional Crowd

A group of people gathered in the same place at the same time because of a shared interest or objective. Generally do not lead to collective behaviour. Behaviour tends to be planned, structured, predictable, and controlled by social norms.

• For example, you and your classmates may attend a scheduled sociology lecture together.

Expressive Crowd

A gathering of people who share a common interest and are gathered at the same event at the same time for an explicit participatory purpose. Gathers so it can respond or react emotionally in particular ways.

• This includes sports fans.

Acting Crowd (Protest)

Consists of people gathered at the same place and time who engage in overt collective behaviour in pursuit of a common goal such as freedom from police violence and systemic racism.

• In 1990 in Oka, Quebec, the Mohawk on nearby reserves conducted a highly publicized protest to halt the town’s plans to expand a private golf course onto what they considered a sacred burial ground.

Collective Mind (Contagion Theory)

Gustave Le Bon argued that people lose their individuality in crowds that leads them to think and behave in ways quite unlike how they would as individuals.

• People are free from social constraints and therefore are more likely to act on impulses that might otherwise be held in check.

• A crowd engages in collective behaviour when the individuals who comprise it communicate their “restlessness” to one another.

Deindividuation (Contagion Theory)

The loss of self-awareness that occurs in groups.

• Individuals may engage in behaviors they wouldn’t typically do if they were alone, such as vandalizing property or engaging in aggressive behavior.

• The anonymity of the crowd reduces personal accountability, and the shared excitement of the group can heighten the likelihood of impulsive actions.

Three Forms of Collective Behavior (Contagion Theory)

1. Milling

2. Collective excitement

3. Social contagion

Milling (Contagion Theory)

Individuals move around amongst one another in aimless and random fashion.

• Increases emotions (excitability) and makes the members of the crowd more sensitive and responsive to one another” and less responsive to “objects and events that would ordinarily concern them.

Collective excitement (Contagion Theory)

A more intense form of milling, which is accompanied by an emotional enthusiasm that is obvious to others.

• You see this in crowds that linger after a football or hockey game to extend a winning celebration in honour of their favourite team by shouting victory cheers at strangers.

• People are “more likely to be carried away by impulses and feelings,” prompting behaviours “which previously they would not likely have thought of, much less dared to undertake”

Social Contagion (Contagion Theory)

Which is the rapid, unwitting, and nonrational dissemination of a mood, impulse, or form of conduct.

• Riots following sports games and clashes with the police during protests are prime examples of this.

• Fads, dieting, vaping, panic, positive and negative environments are all examples of this.

Contagion Theory

The idea that behaviors, emotions, or ideas can spread quickly from one person to another, like an infection. It’s like when someone in a crowd starts doing something (like cheering, laughing, or panicking), and soon, everyone else starts doing it too.

• This happens because people in groups often copy each other’s actions, especially when they are caught up in the excitement or emotions of the moment.

Convergence Theory

Created by William McDougall. That people in crowds come together in a particular location at a particular time specifically to behave in accordance with their prior predispositions.

• People who join crowds or groups share similar ideas, feelings, or behaviors.

• Crowd behavior is a result of individuals' pre-existing tendencies, rather than the crowd itself changing them.

• This theory contrasts with contagion theory, which suggests that people are influenced by the collective behavior and emotions of the group.

Emergent Norm Theory

Collective behaviour results from the sharing of information in groups, which helps establish situation-appropriate forms of social action.

• Collective behaviour is both rational and diverse and that various courses of action are available to members of a group.

• Explains how new behaviors and norms emerge in crowds or groups, especially in situations where existing social norms don't clearly apply.

• According to this theory, when people gather in a crowd or a group, they begin to create new norms or rules that help guide their behavior.

Fads

Are temporary but highly popular social patterns such as activities, events, hobbies, or types of collectables that make up a current trend but eventually disappear when interest wanes (e.g., Tik Tok, VSCO girls, and L.O.L. Surprise!).

• Form of collective behaviour because it impacts a large scattering of people who end up buying similar products, wearing similar styles, and acting in similar ways.

Fashion

Typically involves clothing lines that represent an entire fashion industry of designers and brand labels. Although hair and clothing styles change over time, the category remains part of fashion.

• Form of collective behaviour because it impacts a large scattering of people who end up buying similar products, wearing similar styles, and acting in similar ways.

Rumors

Unsubstantiated stories about people or events. Often accompany ambiguous situations as people try to make sense of what is going on and how they should proceed.

Gossip

Unsubstantiated or substantiated stories about specific individuals. Gossip is unconventional, it is ­spontaneous, and it may or may not be verifiable.

Urban Legends

Unsubstantiated stories that persist over time and contain an underlying message or moral. Believed oral narratives that are passed on from person to person, somewhat like folklore.

Widespread Panic

A situation in which a large group of people becomes overcome by fear and begins to act in a disorganized or irrational manner, often spreading the fear to others.

• It can occur in response to a perceived threat or danger, real or imagined, and leads to a collective breakdown in rational thinking or behavior within a crowd or society.

Moral Panic

Irrational but widespread worry that certain groups represent a terrible threat to the social order. A scare about a threat or supposed threat from deviants or ‘folk devils,’ a category of people who, presumably, engage in evil practices and are blamed for menacing a society’s culture, way of life, and central value.

Moral Entrepreneurs

People who deem it important to bring the damaging behaviour to the attention of others.

• Might be concerned parents, citizens, or others who advocate for measures to alleviate what they perceive as a social problem.

Disaster

A relatively sudden, unscheduled, one-time event that causes a great deal of property or ecological damage, or large-scale loss of life, and substantial disruption or stress among residents in the stricken area.

Collective Trauma

When disasters lead to the destruction of close ties and community this can create collective trauma.

Social Movement

Organized efforts by a substantial number of people to change or to resist change, in some major aspect or aspects of society.

• Involve prior organization and planning.

• Last longer than collective behavior.

• Has identifiable leaders.

• Has specific goals and structure.

Claim

A statement about some phenomenon that is constructed as a social problem.

Claims Making

Declaring that a particular condition is unjust and identifying the measures it considers necessary to correct the injustice.

Social Movement Organization (SMO)

A complex, or formal, organization which identifies its goals with th e preferences of a social movement or a countermovement and attempts to implement those goals.

• Examples include Black Lives Matter, Environmental Defence Fund, PETA

Four Types of Social Movements

1. Alternative Social Movement

2. Redemptive Social Movement

3. Reformative Social Movement

4. Revolutionary Social Movement

Alternative Social Movement

Seek limited societal change for a specific group or narrow segment of society.

• This can include niche groups such as the vegan movement, anti-consumerism movement, spiritual movement, homeshcool movement.

• It can also include groups that maybe harmful to society such as hate groups, terrorist groups and cults.

Redemptive social movements

Seek large-scale change for a specific group in society. Often their goal is to change the entire way of life for a particular group.

• PETA seeks to accord animals the same treatment as humans (by prohibiting all forms of abuse as well as the consumption of animals, the use of leather or fur for clothing, the use of animals for entertainment, and the use of animals in medical experiments).

Reformative Social Movements

Seek to get everyone in society to adopt a new viewpoint or a particular position on an issue.

• For example, the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s included a series of reformative movements seeking equality under the law and an end to discrimination based on race.

Revolutionary social movements

Seek large-scale change that affects everyone in society. At the extreme, such a movement might overthrow an existing political system to pave the way for a new one with a different ideology.

Idle No More is considered.

Collective Identity (Symbolic Interactionist Perspective)

A shared sense of belonging or “we-ness” that binds individuals in a social movement; it serves as the “animating spirit” that propels them to take action on behalf of that social movement.

(6) Value Added Theory (Functionalist perspective)

1. Structural conduciveness: Social conditions necessary for collective behavior to take place.

2. Structural strain: Underlying problems, not currently being addressed by the system.

3. Precipitating factors: Events or behaviours that serve as “triggers” or breaking points.

4. Spread of a generalized belief: Awareness that a particular issue is a social problem and that steps should and can be taken to change it.

5. Mobilization of participation for action: The gathering of potential participants.

6. Operation of social control: People are no longer restrained from carrying out collective efforts.
   

Resource Mobilization Theory (Conflict Perspective)

Explains how social movements gather and use resources (such as people, money, and knowledge) to achieve their goals.

• Frequently combed with political process theory.

• Political entities aim to create social change.

New Social Movement Theory (Symbolic Interactionist Perspective)

Focuses solely on social movements that have arisen in post-industrial or advanced societies, largely since the 1960s.

• Post-industrial movements tend to emphasize human rights (women’s rights, LGBTQIA2S+ rights) and global issues (global warming, poverty, peace).

Collective Action

Refers to a form of organized, collective political activity driven by a group’s awareness of its own class interests and its commitment to realizing those interests. Mills' perspective emphasizes a more politically engaged and class-conscious form of collective action, often framed within the dynamics of class struggle.

This is C Wright Mills early viewpoint.