Transcript Introduction & Theoretical Perspectives

Soc 319: Sociological
Approaches to Social
Psychology
Integroup Conflict (Cont’d) & Collective Behavior
April 16, 2009
E. Resolution of Intergroup
Conflict?
 Superordinate goal (Sherif)

e.g. post-911; rebuilding LA post-riots
 Intergroup contact


Mere contact?
Equal status contact (Stouffer et al.)

Implications for policy re: education, residential
and employment segregation?
 Example: Brown v. Board of Ed (1953)
 Example: affirmative action policy?
 Recategorization (Gaertner)

Is this realistic, given literature on person
perception and schema rigidity?
Rebuilding L.A. after the riots
Changing racial attitudes over time
Racial residential segregation: % who would need to move
for neighborhoods to be racially representative/balanced
Education in U.S., pre-Brown v. Board
of Education (1954)
Social Movements/Collective
Behavior
 Why do Rutgers students protest?






Vietnam war (1960s)
Women in scholarship (1970s)
Anti-apartheid (1980s)
Take back the night/sexual assault (1990s)
Iraq war (2000s)
Perennials…


Tuition hikes
Minority representation
Social Movements/Collective
Behavior
 Collective behavior: two or more persons
engaged in behavior judged common or
centered on one or more dimensions.

Vary by spatial frame, temporal frame, and
scale

Internet is forcing revision of classic theories.
 Social movement: a collective activity that
expresses a high level of concern about
some issue.
 Both are triggered (in part) by strain,
deprivation, or grievance.
Collective behavior v. social
movement ?
“Flash mob” – a pillow
fight in Toronto
Pro-choice rally in
Washington D.C.
Examples of collective behavior
 Crowds: Large gatherings of persons who are
physically proximate for a shared purpose.
 Riots: Gatherings characterized as highly emotional,
involving violence and destruction, and no clear goal.

stages: precipitating event, confrontation, the carnival
phase, siege
 Rumor: Unsubstantiated information spread
informally.
 Fads & Fashions: Cultural practices that large
numbers of persons engage in, for relatively short
time durations.
Fads are a product of collective
behavior
Theories of collective behavior
 Contagion Theory –People are more likely to
engage in antisocial behavior in a crowd because
they are anonymous and feel invulnerable. Emotions
spread across persons in the crowd.

“Laws of imitation” and “group mind” (LeBon).
 Convergence Theory – There is like-mindedness
before the group comes together.
 Emergent Norm Theory – Patterns of behavior
emerge within the crowd. Crowds develop their own
definition of the situation and establish norms for
behavior that fits the occasion. Pre-existing norms
may not be applicable.
Social movements
 A social movement refers to a collection of
individuals who organize together to achieve
or prevent some social or political change.
 There is a direct link between social
movements and social change.
 The success of a movement often is
resource- dependent; where resources
include money, labor, contact with media,
credibility (Resource Mobilization Theory)
Stages in Social Movements
 Preliminary stage - people begin to become
aware of a threatening problem.
 Coalescence stage - people begin to organize
and start making the threat known to the public.
 Institutionalization stage - organizational
structure develops.
Survey of our class…

Have you ever participated in an organized
protest?
A.
B.
Yes
No
Why do some people participate in
social movements yet others don’t?
 Strength of attitude (recall attitude-behavior linkage




literature).
Situational constraints (time, access).
Risks vs. benefits: High-risk/cost activism raises
barriers to mobilizing participants. Rational decision
is not to participate when perceived low success
outweighed by potentially great cost (violence, loss of
job, etc.).
“Social network” theory proposes that people may
get involved because of relationships they have with
others who already belong to the movement.
“Mass society” theory proposes that social
movements attract socially isolated people.
Underlying Causes of Collective
Behavior & Social Movements
 Strain: imbalance in society, typically between
wants/expectations and reality.
 Relative deprivation: a gap between one’s actual
conditions and the conditions of some other
group/individual.
 Grievances and competition: discontent over
current allocation of resources.



Competitive action: conflict between local groups.
Reactive action: conflict between local group and
agents of national political system.
Proactive reaction: demands for resources, rights, and
power.