Social Inequality & Change
Collective behavior
• Definition: activity involving a large number of
people; often spontaneous, sometimes
controversial
• Collectivity: lg. # of people whose activity
occurs in the absence of well-defined &
conventional norms (examples: crowds, riots,
public opinion, rumors, fashion)—can be
localized or dispersed
RIOT
CROWD
Localized collective behavior
• Crowd: temporary gathering of people who
share a common focus & influence each other
• Mob: highly emotional crowd that pursues a
violent or destructive goal
• Riot: social eruption that’s highly emotional,
violent & undirected
• Flash mobs (result of modern technology)
5 Types of crowds
•
•
•
•
•
•
Casual: little/no interaction (beach)
Conventional: planned (funeral)
Acting: intense purpose/emotional (riot)
Expressive: emotional (New Year’s Eve)
Protest: political (marching, die-ins)
CAN CHANGE from one type to another!
MOB
FLASH MOB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GBaHPND2QJg
Sabadell
Friends with Benefits flash mob
(Grand Central Station):
“New York New York”
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=AcF1AMace2s
Christmas Hallelujah
Chorus flash mob
https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=ohagajJvzhU
Dispersed collective behavior
• Rumor: unsubstantiated information people
spread informally, often by word of mouth
• Gossip: rumor about people’s personal affairs
• Public opinion: widespread attitudes about
controversial issues
• Propaganda: information presented with the
intention of shaping public opinion
• Panic: form of localized collective behavior by
which people react to a threat or other
stimulus with irrational, frantic & often selfdestructive behavior
• Mass hysteria (moral panic): form of
dispersed collective behavior by which people
react to a real or imagined event with
irrational and even frantic fear
• Fashion: social pattern favored by lg. # of ppl
• Fad: unconventional social pattern people
embrace briefly but enthusiastically
Social Movements & Change
• Defined: transformation of culture & social
institutions over time
• Exist to encourage or resist change
• Examples: civil rights movement, child labor
laws, women’s rights, environmental laws, gay
rights (same-sex marriage), marijuana
legalization movement
• Result of technology improvements: TV, cable,
satellite, cell phones, social networks
• Unites people like never before
Social Change
• Causes: inventions/technology, discoveries,
diffusion (spread of info/cultures); conflict,
ideas (religion), demographics (women, child
birth rates, migration)
• Modernity: social patterns resulting from
industrialization (less small communities,
more personal choices, more diversity,
oriented towards the future more than the
past)
Modernity
• Mass society: society in which prosperity &
bureaucracy have eroded traditional social ties
• Class society (Marx): capitalist society with
pronounced social stratification
• Postmodernity: social patterns characteristics
of postindustrial societies
• Race: category of people who share biologically
transmitted traits that society considers important
(black, white, Hispanic, Asian)
• Ethnicity: shared cultural heritage (Christian Xmas)
• Prejudice: rigid & unfair generalization about a
category of people (all whites/blacks…)
• Racism: the belief that one racial category is innately
superior to another (Asians are smarter.)
• Generalization: use facts to draw conclusions about a
group of people (most cops are white, so all cops are
white)
• Discrimination: treating various categories of people
unequally (Preferring an Asian doctor because they’re
“smarter.”)
• Stereotype: an exaggerated description applied to
every person in some category (black male=thug)