Chapter 17: Collective
Behavior, Social Movements,
and Social Change
Objectives (slide 1 of 2)
17.1 Collective Behavior
• Define collective behavior and explain its
challenges to sociologists.
• Compare and contrast types of collectivity.
• Examine examples of mass behavior.
17.2 Social Movements
• Illustrate the various types of social
movements.
17.3 Stages of Social Movements
• Describe the stages of a social movement.
Objectives (slide 2 of 2)
17.4 Social Movements in the United
States
• Analyze key social movements in the
United States.
17.5 Theories of Social Movements
• Explain the main theories of social
movements.
17.6 Social Change
• Illustrate theories of social change.
Collective Behavior
• Collective behavior: Behaviors involving a
large number of individuals that are usually
unplanned, often controversial, and
sometimes even dangerous
• Collectivity: A large number of individuals
whose minimal interaction occurs without
the benefit of conventional norms
– Localized collectivities emerge among people
who share close physical proximity.
– Dispersed collectivities involve people who
influence one another even though they are
spread over a large area.
How Collectivities Differ from
Social Groups
Collectivities
Social Groups
Members have only minimal
interaction other individuals
in the collectivity.
Individual members have
considerable interaction with
one another.
No clear social boundaries.
Members share a sense of
identity.
Characterized by the
emergence of weak and often
unconventional social norms
that are insufficient to
regulate the actions of
individuals.
Characterized by strong
norms and have the goal of
regulating the behavior of
members of the group.
Localized Collectivities
• Crowd: A temporary gathering of people
who share a common focus of attention
and who influence one another
• Types of crowds:
– Casual
– Conventional
– Expressive
– Acting
– Protest
Riots and Mobs
• Mob: A highly emotional crowd that
pursues a destructive or violent goal
• Riot: An eruption of social activity that is
highly emotional, undirected, and violent
Theories of Crowd Behavior
• Contagion theory argues that crowds have a
hypnotic effect on their members, causing
people to act in ways they would not
ordinarily act.
• Convergence theories argue that crowd
behavior comes from like-minded
individuals.
• Emergent norm theory states that it is
possible to observe patterns that help
predict the behaviors of individuals within
the collective.
Dispersed Collectivities: Rumors
• Rumors: Unconfirmed information that
people spread, often by word-of-mouth
• Characteristics of rumors:
– They occur in situations in which there are large
degrees of uncertainty and in which facts are
difficult to authenticate.
– They are unstable and change frequently.
– They are difficult to stop.
• Gossip: Rumors about the personal affairs of
a person
Propaganda and Public Opinion
• Public opinion: Widespread attitudes or
beliefs about a particular issue
• Propaganda: Information that is given
with the intention of influencing public
opinion through:
– Facts or evidence
– Emotions
– Authority
Fads and Fashions
• Fashion: A social pattern that is adopted
or followed by a large number of people
• Conspicuous consumption: Spending
money on things that advertise status
and prestige
• Fad: A unique or unconventional social
pattern that is adopted briefly and
enthusiastically by members of a social
group or society
Other Collective Behaviors
Panic and Mass Hysteria
• Panic: A form of collective
behavior in which people
react to a perceived threat
in a frantic and irrational
way
• Moral panic (mass
hysteria): A form of
dispersed collective
behavior in which people
react to a perceived
threatening event with an
irrational fear
Disasters
• Disaster: An event that
causes extensive harm
to people and property
• Types of disasters:
– Natural disasters
– Technological disasters
– Intentional disasters
Social Movements
• Social movement: Any organized activity
that encourages or discourages social
change
• The cultural variety that accompanies
industrial and postindustrial societies
makes social conflict more likely.
Types of Social Movements
• Alternative social movement: A social movement
that seeks to change only very limited aspects of
society
• Redemptive social movement: A social movement
that seeks radical change for a specific, targeted
group of people
• Reformative social movement: A social movement
that targets a broad group of people but whose
changes are limited in scope
• Revolutionary social movement: A social movement
that seeks radical change of an entire society
– Progressive movements promote new social patterns
– Reactionary movements oppose movements that seek
change
Why Do People Join Social
Movements?
• Sociologists have identified four main
reasons people join social movements:
– Personal advantage
– Principled commitment
– Sense of self-identity
– Desire to be part of a group
• Claims making: The process of trying to
convince people that the cause of a social
movement is important
Stages of Social Movements
• Emergence: The tendency for social movements
to form to address a perceived social problem
• Coalescence: A stage of social movements in
which the social movement begins to mobilize
resources to achieve its goal
• Bureaucratization: The tendency for a social
movement to adopt the characteristics of a
bureaucratic organization to achieve its goals
• Decline: The tendency for all social movements to
fade in power and significance
The American Civil Rights
Movement
• The American civil rights movement:
– Fought to end racial discrimination through
litigation, education, and lobbying efforts
– Was centered around peaceful, but forceful,
motivation
The Women’s Movement
• The women’s movement:
– A series of movements occurring over many
years that have been committed to achieving
equal rights for women.
– Three phases:
• Phase 1: Concerned with the basic rights of
women.
• Phase 2: Focused on issues of sexuality, family,
and the workplace.
• Phase 3: Evolved to criticize social definitions of
what it means to be a woman.
The Environmental Movement
• The Environmental movement has had
two main goals:
– Conservation
– The creation of social policies that will lead
to environmental sustainability
The Gay Rights Movement
• The gay rights movement:
– The goal of achieving acceptance and equal
rights for people of all sexual orientations
and sexualities
– Works through the media and the legal
system
The Occupy Wall Street Movement
• The Occupy Wall Street movement:
– Attempted to raise awareness of growing
income inequality and corporate influence
– Relied on consensus-based decisions made
in large assemblies
– Did not have clear-cut goals
The Tea Party Movement
• The Tea Party movement:
– Arose in protest of increasing government
intervention in the lives of citizens
– Articulated a clear set of demands from its
inception
– Has remained politically relevant at state and
local levels
Mass Society Theory
• Mass society theory: A theory that
suggests that people join social
movements because it gives them a sense
of belonging to something larger than
themselves
Deprivation Theory
• Deprivation theory: A theory that states
people join social movements because
they feel deprived in some way
– Relative deprivation: The feeling of
dissatisfaction upon realizing that while
conditions are improving, they are improving
more for other people than for you
Resource Mobilization Theory
• Resource mobilization theory: A theory
that suggests that for a social movement
to be successful, it has to accumulate and
mobilize substantial resources
• Political process theory: A theory of
social movements that emphasizes the
role of the political structure and public
opinion in the outcomes of social
movements
Culture Theory
• Culture theory: A theory that argues that
cultural symbols are important for the
development of a social movement
New Social Movement Theory
• New social movement theory: A theory
that suggests that social movements in
postindustrial societies are substantially
different from social movements that
occurred in industrial societies
Marxist Theory
• Marxist theory: A theory of social
movements that suggests that societies
change through a dialectical process
Categories of Social Change:
Natural Cycles
• Natural cycle theories attempt to explain
the rise and fall of entire civilizations.
– Every civilization faces challenges.
– Groups within a society develop solutions
that often conflict with the ruling class.
– The ruling elite eventually turns to force to
keep the masses under control.
– The resultant fracturing of society leads to
the inevitable decline of the empire.
Evolutionary Theories
• Evolutionary theories suggest that
societies develop from lower forms to
higher forms.
– All societies go through phases of cultural
progress.
– As they develop, cultures become more
complex.
Conflict Over Power
• Conflict-over-power approaches are
based in the dialectic of Karl Marx.
– Antitheses are conflicts over who gains or
maintains power in society.
– Between societies, conflicts over power
often occur in violent clashes or as indirect
competition.
Technology
• Technology changes society through
three main processes:
– Invention: The combining of existing
materials to form new ones
– Discovery: A new way of seeing reality
– Diffusion: The spread of discovery or
invention from one area to another