Collective Behaviour, Social
Movements, and Social Change
Chapter Twenty
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?
man in tiananmen square 1989
Buddhist monk
protest South
Vietnamese
governments
prohibition of
Buddhists
religious
practices 1963
Outline
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Collective Behaviour
Social Movements
Social Movement Theories
Social Change in the Future
Collective Behaviour
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Conditions for Collective Behaviour
Dynamics of Collective Behaviour
Distinctions
Types of Crowd Behaviour
Explanations of Crowd Behaviour
Mass Behaviour
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
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
Factors of the Likelihood of Collective
Behaviour
Structural
Factors
Timing
Break down of
social Control
Likelihood of
Collective
Behaviour
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
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
Types of Crowd Behaviour
Casual and
Conventional
Causal: large;
happen to be in
one place at one
time
Conventional:
those who come
together for a
scheduled event
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
Protest
Not
violent;
may take
the form of
civil
disobedience
(Martin
Luther
King Jr)
Theories of Crowd Behaviour
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Contagion Theory
Social unrest and circular reaction
Convergence Theory
Emergent Norm Theory
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
Mass Behaviour
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
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
Types of Social Movements
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Reform
Revolutionary
Religious
Alternative
Resistance
Reform Movements
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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
http://www.madd.org/activism/
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
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
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
Resistance Movements
 Seek to prevent change
 Example: the Pro Life Movement to
protect the rights of the unborn
 http://www.family.org/
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.
Social Movement Theories
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Relative Deprivation
Value-Added
Resource Mobilization
Social Constructionist
New Social Movement
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
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
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.
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)
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
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
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
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
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
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
References
 The Tank Man Producer: Anthony Thomas,
Cutting Edge 2006
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2300254722104314948&q=man+in+tiananmen+sq
uare&hl=en
 World Changing http://www.worldchanging.com/
 Power of Persuasion Nation Achieves (U.S.)
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion_in
tro.html
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.