Transcript Slide 1

SOCI 3006 – Collective Behaviour
May 2007
Lecture 2
1. Administrative
• course outlines?
• textbooks?
• make sure you are on course list
•
2. Review
“Collective behaviour may be defined as those forms of
social behaviour in which usual conventions cease to
guide social action and people collectively transcend,
bypass or subvert established institutional patterns
and structures” (Turner and Killian, 1987)
"an uninstitutionalized mobilization for action in
order to modify one or more kinds of strain on the
basis of a generalized reconstitution of a component of
action" (Smelser)
2. Review
we are clearly talking about ”social facts (”exteriority, priority
(existing before and after us), constraint in the sense that
Durkheim defined these as the subject matter of sociology
something that develops out of, exists because of the
formation of a group, that changes with the formation of the
group - group phenomena, “emergent phenomena”, these
are social facts. As distinguished from
psychological facts about the individual people that make up
the group
the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - like a
chemical reaction process of hydrogen and oxygen making
something new, water. Or, put twenty 4 year olds in a room
together and you end up with a collective phenomena to
rival a nuclear reaction
3. Social Contagion Theory - LeBon
• note here the time frame - this is the period of positivism,
belief that science could explain everything – tendency to
explain all behaviours In biological/medical terms – hence
the presumption that ‘mobs’ and the behaviour seen there
must have some sort of biological/medical explanation –
the use of terms like ‘instinct’ ‘contagion’, ‘social pathology’
• Le Bon, Park and Blumer the three major theorists here
• an assumption that something happens in a crowd situation
that can cause people to become irrational or ‘temporarily
insane’
3. Social Contagion Theory (cont’d)
• contagion – ‘a rapidly spreading infection’ (Fracastor, 1546)
• the social pathology and social contagion perspectives – the
idea that someone who already has the affliction (behaviour)
can pass it on the someone else, and it can rapidly infect
others
• idea that the ‘infection’ reduces the members of the crowd
to the level of ‘its lowest members’
• contemporary example: suicide epidemics – note here too
Gabrielle Tarde’s work on the ‘laws of imitation’
3. Social Contagion Theory (cont’d)
• Gustave LeBon (1895) – The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
•
remember: the post-Revolution period and political disruptions,
riots, mobs in Paris
•
how is it possible that otherwise rational people, involved in a
crowd, are capable of such irrational behaviour? – for example,
the September Massacres of 1792
•
the concept of the ‘mass’ – note that Noam Chomsky uses a
similar concept – the mass, and control of the mass, as an
important factor in world history
•
Le Bon witnessed first hand parts of this spread of
‘mob’ contagion
3. Social Contagion Theory (cont’d)
• when crowds are formed, acccording to LeBon, members’
behaviour is reduced to the lowest common denominator – the
roughest, least intelligent, most violent
• the ‘unconscious activity of crowds’ – the crowd situation
creates an energy of its own – in a mob situation, the crowd
becomes like a beast on its own – impulsive, irrational,
uncontrolled
• people don’t all have to be in the same place – but they can all be
‘infected’ by the same belief, act in similar ways – e.g. the
Dutch Tulip Bulb Mania of 1634 – 1636 –
http://www.stock-market-crash.net/tulip-mania.htm
or, now, ‘virtual crowds and mobs’ are the spread of rumours
related to computer viruses, missing children, collecting
pop can tabs, etc.
3. Social Contagion Theory (cont’d)
• the psychological crowd:
1. individuals feel invincible and anonymous
2. contagion occurs
3. members of group enter state of suggestibility
• LeBon does not really explain how contagion occurs
• crowds function on emotion, not reason
• the power of the crowd can even affect perception (e.g.
collective delusions)
• immediate factors (time, temperature) and remote factors
(attitudes, beliefs, predispositions individuals bring to the
situation) interact with one another
3. Social Contagion Theory (cont’d)
• criticisms of LeBon’s theory:
1. not empirical
2. sexist
3. political
4. does not explain how contagion occurs
• example: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbyol16.htm
3. Social Contagion Theory - Park
• Robert Park (1921) – Introduction to the Science of Sociology
• the concept of ‘emergent action’ - that people will engage
in unusually intense interaction during periods of stress
or disorder
• a ‘circular reaction’ is created as this interaction takes place
as individuals actions are reinforced, and in turn reinforce
those of others (escalation)
• it is social behaviour because it is ‘referent’ – people are
behaving as the take account of and respond to the actions
of others (question: is all behaviour social behaviour?)
3. Social Contagion Theory - cont’d
• crowd members lose their ability to think independently,
rationally – the development of a collective mind
• the crowd suppresses differences among the members
• the concept of ‘milling behaviour’ – aimless, anxious behaviour,
that is a signal to individuals of the emotive state of the crowd
• sets the stage so that anyone can potentially take on a
leadership role that fits with the mood of the crowd
• also talks about ‘expressive’ crowds that exist to express,
experience, release emotions – like religious revivals,
sports, rock concerts, etc. (note Durkheim here)
3. Social Contagion Theory - cont’d
•
criticisms of Park
1. introduced concept of emergence, though did not develop
it
2. sometimes confusing theory
Example: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_ashley_flores_missing.htm
3. Social Contagion Theory - Blumer
• Herbert Blumer (1969) – “The Field of Collective Behavior”
• really, defined many of the phenomena to be included here –
fads, fashions, social movements, crowds, mobs, panics,
manias, dancing crazes, stampedes, mass behavior, public
opinion, propaganda, revolutions, reforms (too broad?)
• usually, people engage in interpretive interaction – but in
crowd situations people engage in circular reaction where
they stopi interpreting, and merely act in response to others
• show Blumer’s theory (p. 19 of text)
3. Social Contagion Theory - cont’d
• milling behaviour – creates anxiety, heightened awareness –
a readiness for action (e.g. fight or flight instinct)
• Blumer’s theory – p. 20 in text
• social contagion created by excitement, leading to
imitation of one another’s behaviour, responding to rumour,
innuendo is the absence of other information
• concept of ‘the mass’ – a group of anonymous individuals,
not directly in touch with one another, much more
individualistic – e.g. people following the O.J. Simpson trial –
but a volatile group in society, a force to be reckoned with
(e.g. the end of cyclamates, Dow beer, others?)
3. Social Contagion Theory - cont’d
•
criticisms of Blumer
1. good emphasis on interaction as key component
2. confusing to read
3. does not explain really how contagion takes place
•
overall, social contagion theory influential, but not used
in this form any more – because of emphasis on
irrationality
3. Emergent Norm Perspective
•
Turner and Killian (1957) Collective Behavior
1. Collective behaviour can occur whenever a group of
people find themselves in a situation of uncertainty
2. When people don’t know what to do, they look
around to see what other people are doing
3. Members watch the behaviour of others to see what
happens – if no negative consequences, will assume
those behaviours are acceptable – circular reinforcement
4. Members will conform to these new group norms as they
emerge – because it seems to be the socially acceptable,
the ‘right’ thing to do in the situation
• “Collective behaviour may be defined as those forms of
social behaviour in which usual conventions cease to
guide social action and people collectively transcend,
bypass or subvert established institutional patterns
and structures” (Turner and Killian, 1987)
• emphasis is on the way definitions are defined and new
norms emerge to make sense of these situations, to guide
behaviour (e.g. how do you know when it is a real fire alarm,
not just a fire drill?)
• emergent norms are ‘social facts’, external to and coercive
with respect to individual behaviour
• theory strongly influenced by Symbolic Interactionism, and
the W.I. Thomas’s concept of definition of the situation –
also the concept of ‘taken for granted reality’
• note here too C.H. Cooley and the concept of the ‘looking
glass self’ – also Goffman, the presentation of self in
everyday life – how do interactions with others come to
define situations, what are the implications of this for
behaviour, how can these definitions be manipulation and
altered
• if situations are believed to be real, they will be real in their
consequences (Thomas) – note the significance of this
perspective (e.g. religious wars, the broadcast of Wells’
War of the Worlds)
• the emergent norm process – p. 26
• the concept of the crowd – short lived, loosely knit, and
disorderly collectivities
• note the influence of Durkheim on Turner and Killian as per
the constraining nature of norms as social facts
• other people as ‘reference groups’ in terms of determining
what the norms of behaviour are (e.g. how to behave when
smoking dope; drinking; laughter norms)
• under normal circumstances, individuals have little
influence over group norms – but in collective behaviour
situations, one individuals can establish the norm, if the
other members have defined the situation as needing
action of some sort
• not all members of the collective crow will behave in the
same way - as in any form of social behaviour, they will
assume different roles/statuses
• any behaviour that does not elicit social disapproval
becomes defined as acceptable (e.g. looting)
• the six conditions for the occurrence of collective behaviour
1. Uncertainty in the situation
2. A sense of urgency
3. Communication of mood and imagery
4. Constraint by emerging norms
5. Selective individual suggestibility
6. Permissiveness
Uncertainty
• the importance of ‘informational influence’ in resolving
uncertainty (rumour)
• e.g. propaganda; scape-goating
Urgency
• milling as both a physical and psychological process, both
in close proximity and remote
• e.g. Y2K; soccer riots; internet viruses; gas prices
Communication of mood and urgency
• both verbal and non-verbal
Constraint
• even the emerging norms constrain, direct behaviour – note
here the power then of a leader, initiator here
• again, the Asch experiments – can you think of any others?
Selective Individual Suggestibility
• the tendency to become more polarized to attitudes of
other members of the crowd – and more likely to accept
the definition of the situation promoted by the crowd
• if crowd is expressing violent attitudes, will be more likely to
express angry sentiments
Permissiveness
• of behaviours particular to the collective crowd, in the
particular situation
Classification of participants in collective action:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Ego-involved/committed (personally involved)
Concerned
The insecure (anonymity, righteousness)
Spectators (included in counts, audience, may
become participants)
5. The ego detached/exploiters (looters,
merchants, serial killers)
Criticisms of Emergent Norm Perspective
• too ‘micro’?
• ignores structural conditions