17 Crowds and Collectives A detailed study of groups would be incomplete if it did not consider the dynamics of larger social collectives. For centuries people have wondered at the seemingly inexplicable actions that people undertake when part of a large mass of humanity. Juries, teams, squads, clubs, and cults are all intriguing, but so are riots and rumors; crowds and crazes; and mobs and movements. This unit describes collectives, explains their dynamics, and seeks to repair their reputation. What is collective behavior? What theories explain collective behavior? How different are collectives from other types of groups? Crowds and Collectives Collectives: Forms and Features Collective Dynamics What are collectives? Contagion Gatherings Convergence Crowds Deindividuation Collective movements Emergent norms Social movements Social identity Preview Collectives are groups Myth of the madding crowd Studying groups What are collectives? Relatively large aggregations of individuals who display similarities in action and outlook. Queue Examples………….. What are collectives? Size: large rather than small Proximity: together or disbursed Duration: form and disband rapidly (but not always) Conventionality: sometimes members’ actions are atypical, unconventional, or aberrant Relationships among members: weak associations rather than cohesive Characteristics of Collectives What are collectives? Forms of Collective Behavior Gatherings Social order in gatherings: Milgram’s line jumping study Group Gathering Crowd Crowds Crowds: street crowds, mobs, panics formation processes and crowd crystals Milgram’s Study of Crowd Formation Crowds McPhail, Schweingrube, & Turner’s observation system Crowds Mobs celebratory mobs lynch mobs hooliganism riots flash Panics escape acquisition Crowds Queues sometimes break down into crowds, mobs, and panics The Who Concert tragedy The Love Parade disaster Collective movements Rumors as collective processes Mass delusions The War of the Worlds broadcast Psychogenic illness Collective movements Trends Social Movements • Fads • Crazes • Trends (fashion, etc.) • • • • Reformist Revolutionary Reactionary Communitarian The “Arab Spring” as a social movement The surprising events of the Arab Spring are still being discussed and debated, but some political scientists have suggested that these were high-tech rebellions. The protesters became what technology expert Howard Rheingold (2002) calls a smart mob: a social movement organized through the use of information technology, including cell phones and the Internet. Collective Dynamics Contagion Theories Deindividuation Theory Emergent Norm Theories Social Identity Theory Contagion Le Bon’s crowd psychology Contagion: The spread of behaviors, attitudes, and affect through social collectives Social network analyses of collective processes Gladwell’s analysis of connectors, mavens, salespeople Convergence “Every man has a mob self and an individual self, in varying proportions” D. H. Lawrence Similarities among those who join crowds and collectives Relative deprivation: people whose attainments fall below their expectations are more likely to join social movements. van Zomeren et al., 2004 Deindividuation Conditions of Deindividuation State of Deindividuation Anonymity Responsibility Loss of self-awareness Group membership ↓ Others (overload, Loss of self-regulation drug usage, chanting) 1. Low self-monitoring 2. Failure of normative control 3. Decline in selfgenerated reinforcements 4. Failure to form longrange plans Deindividuated Behaviors Behavior is emotional, impulsive, irrational, regressive, with high intensity 1. Not under stimulus control 2. Counternormative 3. Pleasurable Deindividuation reduced responsibility (diffusion of responsibility) membership in large groups heightened state of physiological arousal The Deindividuated State Research suggests that the deindividuated state has two basic components: reduced self-awareness (minimal self-consciousness, etc.) altered experience (disturbances in concentration and judgment, etc.) Support for this model is limited Emergent norms Turner and Killian’s emergent norm theory Crowds often develop unique standards for behavior and that these atypical norms exert a powerful influence on behavior. Turning the strange into the normal Example: Baiting Crowds Social identity Collective behavior is sustained by identity processes collectives sustain rather than undermine individuals’ identities ingroup/outgroup processes increase self-categorization individuation: collective behavior in some cases represents an attempt to reestablish a sense of individuality Collectives are groups The “crowd-as-mad” assumption: Collectives differ from more routine groups in kind rather than in degree This view of collectives is questionable: Like groups in general, collectives are often misunderstood and mismanaged Collectives are groups Collectives, like many groups are misunderstood and mismanaged. Fortunate, the scientifici study of groups provides a means to gain a deeper understanding of groups and their dynamics. Crowds and Collectives Collectives: Forms and Features Collective Dynamics What are collectives? Contagion Gatherings Convergence Crowds Deindividuation Collective movements Emergent norms Social movements Social identity Review Collectives are groups Myth of the madding crowd Studying groups