Collective Behavior and Social Movements: Process and

Structure
A. What Is Collective Behavior?
As we review these pages for the final time sections of Los Angeles are in flames in response to a jury verdict exonerating police
whose beating of an African American man was captured on videotape. Supporters and opponents of abortion take to the streets
daily. Mexico City searches for answers to a gas explosion that leveled a 40 square block area. The number of men wearing pony
tails and one earring and the number of people saying and understanding "yo, dude" seems to be increasing. These diverse
actions fall within the area sociologists call collective behavior.
Some fields in sociology are relatively easy to define and their meaning can be grasped immediately, e.g. the family, deviance,
politics or organizations. Collective behavior is not one of them. It includes an enormous array of behaviors, processes,
structures and contexts. It encompasses parts of many sociological sub-fields. It tends to focus on a particular kind of behavior,
rather than on a particular institution such as schools, on abstract group properties such as social stratification or bureaucratic
structure, or on a single social process such as socialization. To be sure many areas of sociology involve the study of behavior
--but they tend to be restricted to particular types e.g., religious, criminal or political behavior. In contrast collective behavior is
not restricted to a given type of behavior or social process. It is more general and inclusive.
What do sociologists mean by the term collective behavior? College catalogues usually define this course as involving the study
of crowds, fads, disasters, panics and social movements. A listing of such nouns is descriptively accurate. Yet what binds these
things together? Why are elements included or excluded? Would a marching band be included? What about a labor dispute in a
context where workers have the right to strike as part of their agreement with management? What about an orderly crowd
watching the construction of a large office building? Is a weekly church revival meeting with the same participants an example
of collective behavior? What if the number attending rapidly expanded and many new revival groups appeared? What if most of
those attending suddenly stopped coming? Is a reform-seeking political party or interest group an example of collective
behavior? What (if anything) does a highly organized social movement which endures over decades share with the most
ephemeral crowd or fad?
Defining the field by merely listing empirical phenomena does not permit answering such questions and leaves us with a jumble
of seemingly unrelated topics. Thus, a crowd is a type of group. A fad is a type of behavior. Disaster refers to a type of social
setting. Panic refers to an individual psychological state. A social movement often refers to a type of organization. Awareness of
this diversity has led to a lively debate about what the field ought to consist of. One strand of criticism argues that the field has
little internal unity and is held together only by accidents of tradition. The first collective behavior theorists in the Nineteenth
century chose to include the above elements. These were then rather uncritically accepted by later theorists such as Park and
Burgess (1924), and then Blumer (1951), whose intellectual legacy has shaped contemporary views.

Because of these accidents of tradition, the field can be seen as a residual category: what can not be studied as social structure,
or from a perspective of cultural definitions, falls within the province of collective behavior.
Some critics argue the field would be improved by excluding social movements from it. These more organized and enduring
phenomena are seen to belong to political or organizational sociology. Others argue that the field would be better were it to be
more concerned with a particular group structure such as the crowd, regardless of whether the behavior present is dynamic or
predefined by cultural standards. Still others argue that the focus should not be on the highly diverse and seemingly unrelated
forms of behavior traditionally included, but on the distinctive social and psychological processes thought to be present.
An even more extreme view argues that the field as a whole should be abolished because all complex social behavior is
collective and to a degree dynamic. Hence the "field" has no unique subject matter. The collective behavior perspective is
thought to apply to all behavior and no unique concepts, theories or methods are needed to understand it, apart from general
sociological concepts. If we were starting fresh we could certainly find a better name for the field and perhaps a more logical
way of dividing it up (although this could be said of most intellectual fields).
The term "collective behavior" does not have much literal meaning since strictly speaking it includes any group behavior. Yet
once established, intellectual traditions are slow to change. The initial definitions of knowledge and questions in this field still
exert a powerful hold. Courses and books usually contain the words "collective behavior." Critics of this field raise important
issues, but as in Kipling's fable of the blind persons and the elephant (where each person correctly identifies a separate part, but
all fail to see the whole animal), we think there is a broad logic uniting the field. The logic involves emergent group behavior in
settings where cultural guidelines are non-specific or lacking, inadequate, or in dispute.

B. Why Study Collective Behavior?

Aside from its intrinsic interest, there are a number of reasons why the study of collective behavior is important. To begin with
the topic has some highly practical aspects. In 1979 at a rock concert by the "Who" at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium 11 people
died. They were among many thousands waiting in line to enter the stadium. They were crushed to death when a stadium door
opened and the crowd surged forward. Better architectural design and crowd management might have avoided this tragedy. In a
related example there is sometimes needless loss of life and injury when persons inside a smoke filled auditorium panic and all
run for the exit, rather than exiting in an orderly fashion. Knowledge of how people respond in such situations can lead to
physical design and the training of personnel so that "unnecessary" damage does not occur.
In more contentious settings such as prison riots, (e.g. Attica in 1971 or civil disorders such as. Watts in 1964, Detroit and
Newark in 1967) knowledge of crowd behavior and social movements can reduce loss of life and injury and help prevent conflict
from escalating in a destructive way. Most of the loss of life during the 1960s urban civil disorders was caused not by protestors,
but by control agents who, lacking experience in crowd control and holding discredited or inappropriate ideas about crowds,
frequently overreacted. (Marx 1970)

The importance of understanding behavior in disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tidal waves, and nuclear accidents is
obvious. Research, education and planning can make it more likely that the damage that occurs is entirely a result of the
disaster and not the human response to it. The Center for Disaster Research at the University of Delaware, founded by collective
behavior scholars E.L. Quarantelli and Russell Dynes, has had a world-wide impact. The center has served as a clearing house
and international model for other research centers and researchers. Its research has been useful to disaster planning and control
efforts. As we will note in chapter III the research on disasters has revealed some counter-intuitive findings.
Apart from its direct usefulness, knowledge of collective behavior is relevant to you as an educated person and as a participant
in a democratic society. It calls attention to some of the most basic questions about human beings. There is the question posed
by Hobbes: how is social order possible? How fragile is the social order and what happens when it breaks down? There is the
question raised by Freud: how rational is modern man in an industrial urban setting? There is the question posed by Karl Marx:
how do societies change? Does history follow a pre-determined path? Are individuals simply pawns of some more profound
historical necessity or do persons make their own history? Why are social reform efforts frequently unsuccessful or limited in
their impact or duration? Of course in this short text we can not begin to do justice to these questions, but the study of
collective behavior offers one way to approach them.
As a social science field its eclectic nature gives it some distinctive elements. Those concerned with ever greater specialization
and the tight compartmentalization of disciplines might see this as a disadvantage. Yet for the undergraduate liberal arts
student, the field's theoretical, empirical and cross-disciplinary breadth is a decided advantage. It is an ideal area within which
to examine basic, and unfortunately often unrelated, theoretical perspectives on group life. The empirical data force us to
confront process and structure, change and stability, conflict and cooperation and the micro and the macro levels of analysis.
As we noted earlier even a short lived crowd will show a degree of structure and patterning. It will be limited and shaped by the
cultural expectations and social characteristics that persons bring to it. At the same time behavior within highly organized
bureaucratic settings such as an assembly line or a large office will show emergent and innovative elements.
To understand participation in a religious movement such as Hari Krishna or a protest movement on behalf of the environment,
we will want to know what the experience means to people and how they see their situations. These topics can be usefully
approached through the study of "symbolic inter-action". At the same time we will want to apply a broad approach that looks not
only at individual perception and sense-making, but at group structures and functions and the broad societal, and even
international, context within which the behavior is occuring.
As we noted, the sometimes controversial and out-of-the-ordinary nature of collective behavior topics and the fact that people
may feel deeply about them can offer us data that is usually hidden or unseen. Dormant or taken-for-granted elements of social
structure may suddenly surface or become problematic. We may be forced to look at society in a new way. Some collective
behavior tests societal limits. As a result important aspects of society's functioning may be revealed. Issues around social
stratification, inequality, decision making, the nature and distribution of power and legitimation may come to the front.

Thus when a controversy ends with police, or in extreme cases the national guard being called in, the role of organized force or
coercion (and their threat) in maintaining the established social order is apparent. The messages on placards and in the chants
and songs of protestors can tell us about powerlessness and dissensus over values. The origin of, and supports and legitimation
for, basic values and practices may be called into question. For example when blacks refuse to sit in the back of the bus, when
18 year olds refuse to be drafted to fight in Viet Nam, when homosexuals demonstrate for the right to serve in the military, or
when students defy administrators by wearing outfits to school favored by punk-rock musicians, questions appear such as:
where do the rules come from? Who makes them? Who do they serve? What is right and wrong? Who says how things ought to
be done and by what authority?
The field also offers a way to blend humanistic and social scientific concerns. The humanist's concern with historical
understanding and values and the social scientist's concern with using general principles to systematically order empirical data
can be joined. Collective behavior deals with events of historical significance to a greater extent than almost any other area of
sociological inquiry. Factual knowledge of these events is required if we are to know how to interpret, order and compare them.
Understanding modern history and the nature of mass industrial society (including the social change dynamics associated with
industrialization, urbanization, and modernization) requires some knowledge of, and a perspective upon, mass behavior and
movements. The French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, fascist movements in Germany and Italy, anti-colonial movements in
third world countries, and the recent American and Eastern European social movements have profound historic importance.
Their legacies touch us all in a variety of ways. There is little sign that the role of collective behavior as a vehicle for social
change, whether through mass movements or the more subtle diffusion processes of fashions and fads is lessening.
There are additional moral and pragmatic reasons for an understanding of the field. During the 1930s and for several decades
thereafter, a generation of European and United States researchers were drawn to it. (e.g. Fromm 1941, Kornhauser 1959). Their
attention was focused on the fragility of democratic institutions and the ability of totalitarian rulers to manipulate large numbers
of people. They sought to understand how modern technology and a mass society might facilitate fascism. They wanted to
understand how fascism occurred and what could be done to prevent or combat it.
Researchers in the 1960s and 1970s were also inspired by a concern with social movements, but in this case it was generally in
the hope of understanding more about them in order to aide them. Toward the end of the 1960s research output significantly
expanded, as persons who had been active in, or were supportive of, the civil rights, student and anti-war movements sought to
gain knowledge of the collective behavior and social change processes which were touching their lives.
Collective behavior is of course a double-edged sword. It may be used for good or ill depending on the context, the goals you
hold to be important and your beliefs about the proper relationship between means and ends. It is intricately involved with
issues of freedom and tyranny. Organization and structure can be enemies of freedom, creativity, and adaptability. Collective
behavior can mean challenge to unjust authority, liberation and renewal. It may demonstrate humans at their most moral and
heroic. But it can also involve destruction, irrationality, barbarism and the most self-serving and least honorable of human
qualities.

Regardless of your own personal values, where you stand on a left-right continuum, and whether or not you see yourself as an
activist, in order to be an informed and reasonably autonomous citizen of a democratic society, some knowledge of mass
behavior and movements is essential. You have been and will continue to be subject to collective behavior processes. This partly
represents spontaneous factors characterizing any complex social enterprise. But it also reflects the ever-finer honing of the
technology and the expansion of the resources needed for producing collective behavior. As a potential target for, or a voluntary
consumer/participant of collective behavior activity, it is vital that you have some understanding of and ability to analyze crowd
behavior, propaganda, ideology, rumor, mass communications, social movements, and fads, crazes and fashion. A citizenry
informed in these matters is a necessary condition for political democracy, rationality and individual freedom. This is clearly
demonstrated by the control efforts, (whether stark repression or more subtle manipulation) found in contemporary totalitarian
countries and novels such as Brave New World and 1984.

C. Dimensions of Emergence-Cultural Specificity

Social settings can be contrasted with respect to the extent to which culture defines what is to be done. At one extreme, culture
offers guidelines: it indicates what social roles will be played and by whom and who can become a member; it defines means
and ends and procedures for decision-making and it indicates where interaction will occur and when it will begin and end. A
wedding ceremony in a church, a lecture in a college classroom, or an automobile assembly line are examples of highly
organized settings where culture offers a great deal of direction.
At the other extreme are social settings where the official culture offers relatively little direction. This is often the case with a
new group spontaneously coming together in response to some unusual or troubling incident. Take for example, a student crowd
which gathers to protest a raise in university tuition. The crowd is not bound by the culture of a formal organization which
indicates 1) who is a member (if it is in a public area anyone, in priniciple, is "eligible" for membership), 2) what social roles will
be present and who will perform these (e.g., will a leader appear, and if so, who will this be, the angriest, the first to arrive, or
the person with the foresight to bring a portable microphone?), 3) what the group's goals are and how these should be decided
(e.g., will the group demand that the increase be rescinded, that the head of the college resign, that students be placed on the
college's governing body, or, given diversity within the crowd, perhaps no common goal[s] will emerge, 4) what means will be
adopted (e.g. will the crowd's behavior consist of milling around, listening to speeches, signing petitions, marching, chanting, or
attempting some direct action, such as a sit-in?), 5) what other groups will get involved --students who support the increase,
non-college town youth who are resentful of college students, other student or non-student political organizations with their own
agenda, faculty or college administrators, police? 6) the temporal and geographical location of the behavior (e.g. where and
when will the crowd gather and when will it break up, will other meetings be held, will an organization (newly formed or already
existing) come to pursue the crowd's goals, will other meetings be held, will the protest spread to other students not present or
to other issues, will the protest spread to other campuses facing similiar increases?
While the study of collective behavior offers ample grounds for informed prediction about such protests in the aggregate (that is
considering a large number of instances), for any given case we can not know the answers beforehand. Answers will be found
only by our observing the interaction that occurs at the scene. The emergent quality of interaction that may characterize a

crowd becomes even clearer when we consider a very large number of persons interacting over a period of time. The reciprocal
responses of thousands of persons simply can't be known in advance.
Many situations fall between the extremes of clearly defined and highly specified cultural dictates and the absence of any
guidelines. Let us consider three intermediate examples: contests, celebrations and disasters. These combine cultural
specificity with culturally mandated emergence, depending on which dimension of organization vs. emergence we consider.
In the case of the contest, we have culture offering broad parameters and specific requirements over means, but leaving open
how things actually develop and who triumphs. Here a degree of emergence is institutionalized. Contrast a U.S. presidential
election with the carefully detailed procedure for choosing the English crown or the one-candidate elections of traditional
totalitarian countries. Or contrast an audience event such as a basketball game with a play or symphony. The outcome of the
latter show relatively little emergence. Things are programmed beforehand. While no two performances by the same orchestra
will ever be exactly alike, they will show remarkable parallels given the fact that the same musical score is being followed.
Contrast this with a contest which, by definition, must be open-ended. For example, in a college basketball game while there is
prior agreement about where and when the game will be played, who is eligible to play and what the rules of the game are, it is
not known beforehand (at least in the sense of being culturally mandated) who will win, if there will be an overtime, what the
score will be, how the score will be obtained (e.g., who will score, when, in what way, how the lead may alternate), how
strategies and players will mesh, if the game will be well played and exciting, what role momentum will play, and if the audience
will be enthusiastic or bored. Strikes are a related example. Since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act and related
legislation in the 1930s, workers have been granted the legal right to strike. Yet the outcome depends on the resources and
strategy of labor and management.
Many celebrations have a similar indeterminate or emergent status. They are institutionalized in the sense that they are
expected and even tolerated, yet there is much room for emergence. Thus while crowd revelry on Halloween, New Years Eve,
Mardi Gras, or after an important athletic victory can be anticipated, the exact boundaries and course of the crowd behavior is
not very clearly defined. What happens depends partly on how people interact, how inebriated they are, the weather (e.g. does
it rain or not), whether innovative behavior appears which others copy, and whether some critical incident occurs which serves
to inspire others, or engender a common emotion in many persons such as anger or fear. It is not clear how far the
institutionalized license for celebration extends. Up to a point, officials may ignore behavior they would attempt to control at
other times. Yet just how far the crowd will go before control appears is not known, nor can we know in concrete detail what the
course and outcome of efforts to exercise control will be.
Certain disaster settings also show an intermediate position with respect to emergence. Thus, the exact place and time of a fire,
explosion, traffic accident, earthquake, or tornado, is not usually known in advance (or is known for only a short time as with
floods and hurricanes), but there are prior cultural prescriptions and resources to deal with these incidents which we know are
likely to occur. Much of the unfolding of the incident is emergent. It depends on the behavior and interaction of various groups
such as victims, spectators, exploiters, and professional and volunteer rescue workers (who may not have worked together
before); the extent of resources made available by various levels of government, private groups, or a concerned public, as well
as natural conditions such as wind and temperature.

In contrasting extreme settings where culture offers very specific guidelines, such as the factory, as against settings where far
fewer guidelines are offered, as with the protest crowd, we are dealing with relative differences. Of course, persons in our
protest crowd share important elements of American culture and are a part of various university or neighborhood social
networks. These effect the range of options they consider an shape the manner in which they behave. For example, even the
idea of a protest crowd involves the notion that persons are entitled to certain things and that coming together to protest is an
appropriate means of redress. Judged historically this is a new idea. The crowd is most likely to gather at a place such as a
quadrangle, student center, stadium, or plaza where crowds traditionally gather and at a time such as noon, the late afternoon,
or evening when persons do not have classes or work. The effect of culture can be seen in more subtle ways such as how close
persons stand to each other, the language and themes developed in speeches, how people dress, and the protest strategies
chosen.
Conversely, even situations of great cultural specificity are likely to have some openness and emergence. Looked at closely
enough, processes and outcomes within equivalent highly specified cultural settings will show unique elements. Culture does
not (and could not) determine all behavior. There is a sense in which all social behavior is characterized by emergent elements.
We can rarely know in exact detail how any given social encounter, let alone more complex activities such as a surgical
operation or a football game, will develop. There are simply too many possible contingencies and too many unknowns in the
environment. Beyond this, individuals are unique in many ways and their responses cannot always be anticipated, even when
we know what they will be responding to and how they are normatively supposed to respond. There is ample room for individual
activity and style and non-cultural elements to appear within the general normative framework. The mere presence of rules is
no guarantee that they will produce predictable behavior (e.g., in a wedding the groom or bride may decide not to go along as in
the film The Graduate, the professor may not show up for class, disgruntled workers may walk off the job in a wild-cat strike).
But the rules are there. In the absence of extenuating circumstances, they offer broad guidelines for behavior (though to be sure
there is always some negotiation around what the rules mean and how they apply in specific situations).
Thus, even at our extremes, there will be emergent behavior in highly organized settings and cultural elements in the most
emergent settings. Yet the contrast remains useful in conceptualizing collective behavior.
The greater open-ended quality (at least from a standpoint of the presence of cultural standards and formal organization) of a
spontaneously gathered crowd illustrates the major element of collective behavior: it is emergent. We should note two important
features of emergence, (1) it is multi-dimensional (table I lists some major dimensions), and (2) each dimension can be
conceived on a continuum moving from a maximum degree of cultural specification to a maximum degree of emergence (rather
than a mere presence or absence).
One final point about emergence: it also characterizes much individual behavior. We are constantly interpreting our environment
and making choices in response to changing stimuli. Culture leaves us considerable room. For example, culture will probably not
tell us precisely what clothes you are wearing, which shoe you put on first, where (and if) you choose to eat breakfast, what and
how much you will eat, where you will sit, whether you go to class, what you will do once you get there (take notes, read the
paper, fall asleep), what you will do between classes and so on. Your behavior in these areas will emerge largely from your
assessment of what to do in the situations in question. The situations you confront (which themselves are always somewhat

fluid and unpredictable) and your own feelings and interpretations will lead to particular lines of action. Yet for obvious reasons
this would not be characterized as collective behavior, nor would the culturally innovative behavior of an isolated individual,
though these may be emergent and stand in a special relation to conventional culture. Collective behavior is group behavior. It
is social and involves persons responding to each other, or the same stimulus, rather than the behavior of isolated individuals.

Some Additional Characteristics

The fact that collective behavior is emergent means that the topics chosen for the study often display two characteristics:
(1) they appear, diffuse, contract or change form suddenly and unexpectedly. (2) those involved show a relatively high degree of
personal engagement. The behavior itself may not be new (buying or selling, taking money out of a bank, moving from one
place to another) are hardly innovative activities as such. However, when large numbers of persons unexpectedly behave in
similar fashion (and often with intensity) such as withdrawing savings from a bank, migrating to Alaska in a gold rush, investing
everything they own in the purchase of tulips -- as happened in Holland's 1634 tulip mania -- we are likely dealing with an event
sociologists would study as collective behavior. Words frequently used to describe collective behavior, such as cataclysmic,
volatile, unscheduled, spontaneous, capture these qualities. Persons perceive that something out of the ordinary or non-routine
is occurring.
The suddenness is illustrated by the fact that (1) collective behavior events are often unexpected at the place and time they
occur, (2) the behavior may diffuse rapidly from one person to another in the same environment, (3) the behavior may diffuse
from one environment to another, (4) the behavior may change form or rapidly disappear. Examples of this include a crowd
which rapidly gathers at the scene of a fire or disaster, a rash of flying saucer sightings, a flu-like epidemic that spreads rapidly
among school children for which there is no known medical cause, the surprise appearance and spread of streaking within and
between college campuses, the spread of a demonstration or a riot from one city to hundreds of cities, the rock throwing and
fighting that may emerge among fans turned away from a sold out rock concert, a crowd which disperses as soon as it starts to
rain, a fad which suddenly becomes passe, a social movement which turns from non-violence to violence, or the reverse, are
examples. We shall have more to say about these topics in considering the life history approach and collective behavior
processes in Chapter II.
Early theorists focused on the psychological state of those involved in collective behavior. Such persons were thought to be
excitable, emotional, irrational, regressive and easily led. Such sweeping views of the crowd offered by LeBon (1960) and Freud
(1945) among others are now widely rejected. But their view does call attention to the personally engaging quality of much
collective behavior (which is not to argue that personal engagement is absent in traditional behavior nor that it is a necessary
condition for collective behavior). Participants may feel a sense of urgency and involvement as they become caught up in the
situation. In extreme cases there may be a singleness of purpose and parochialism as everything is filtered through the lens of
the collective behavior activity. The cool detachment that characterizes much social role playing may not apply. The gap
between the private self and social role (where such a role is present) may be lessened or disappear. The personal distancing
which roles permit and their prior guidelines which lessen the need for individual attentiveness are lacking.

In addition when greater personal involvement is present it is also likely to be related to (1) self interest in crisis and disaster
situations where, given a partial breakdown in social order one must be attentive to survive or obtain one's goals. Prior culture
and social structure cannot be automatically relied upon for easy directions and answers. (2) where the behavior in question is
seen as bizarre, out of the ordinary and deviant, intense involvement with like-minded others may be necessary to overcome
the usual inhibitions and social controls. (3) group settings such as assemblies that are structured to focus attention on a
particular activity or situation. As Durkheim ( 1964) observed, it is in group settings that persons often experience feelings of
solidarity. Persons who are specialists at audience arousal and involvement such as comedians or political orators, may aid in
this. (4) where observers perceive that something out of the ordinary is occurring and where information is limited, curiosity
may be heightened. Where the behavior is sudden, novel, and unusual, observers will ask "what's going on?" and "how can
people do such things?" This may involve discussing the behavior with others, turning to the media, or rushing to the scene.

D. Collective Behavior in Diverse Social Settings: Crowds, Masses, and Formal

Organizations
Collective behavior is sometimes confused with the setting in which it occurs. It is important to keep these separate. To study a
crowd or a mass is not necessarily to study collective behavior. Conversely, to study a formal organization, or to use the
concepts and perspective of organizational sociology does not preclude the study of collective behavior. Table III helps to
illustrate this. Across the top, the table lists three familiar settings: (1) mass, (2) crowd, (3) formal organization in a fixed
location. Along the side in cross tabulation are shown examples of conventional and collective behavior that can occur within
each setting.
Strictly speaking, crowds and masses are not examples of collective behavior, nor is a bureaucracy an example of non-collective
behavior. Rather, these are types of group settings. The presence or absence of collective behavior, or collective behavior
phenomena, depends on what is occurring within them. Traditionally, sociologists have been most likely to do their studies in
less formal settings and hence the literature contains much more information on this type of collective behavior phenomena.
But the setting should not be equated with the behavior or the process. One of the advances in recent years in the study of
collective behavior has been to uncouple structure, behavior and process, and to ask how they are related.
Earlier theorists assumed that collective behavior was found primarily outside of the context of formal organizations. There are
some obvious reasons why this might be expected. Thus, when formal organizations show an elaborate division of labor,
hierarchy, roles, schedules, and directives, there will be less "room" for non-institutional behavior. There may also be less "need"
for it, to the extent that collective behavior represents problem solving or adaptive behavior which in the words of Herbert
Blumer (1951, p. 130) is "formed or forged to meet undefined or unstructured situations". A crucial aspect of organized settings
is the provision of solutions that have evolved from previous problem solving efforts. Finally, organizations have a variety of
social control mechanisms. The mere threat of these may prevent collective behavior, or should it appear, social control may be
mobilized to stop it. The fact that individuals playing roles within formal organizations are personally identifiable and lack the
anonymity offered by a large crowd has been thought to inhibit collective behavior.

The historical definition of collective behavior as unstructured, unorganized behavior, with unique properties, also drew
attention away from organizations. In addition, many of the most dramatic and hence newsworthy examples of collective
behavior seem to occur in crowds or the mass. The conventional behavior commonly occurring in such settings or the collective
behavior in formal organizations receives far less attention.
However, in the last decade, sociologists have increasingly questioned this too-easy equation of collective behavior and nonorganized settings, and lack of sufficient attention to variables of an organizational nature. While by definition, the behavior as
such is less institutionalized, this does not lead to the conclusion that it will never occur within, or be linked to, formal
organizations. Recent research on mobilization and access to resources, has increasingly focused on collective behavior and
formal organizations [1] Three major links between collective behavior and formal organizations can be noted: (1) the
conduciveness of organizational settings to mobilization for collective behavior, (2) organizations as sources of problems and
discontent which may lead to collective behavior and serve as arenas for its appearance and (3) the direct role of organizations
in producing collective behavior.
The strains and discontentment generated by a formal organization obviously need not result in organized protest. Persons may
have only a vague or diffuse notion of what is wrong, or blame themselves. The costs of resistance may be too high -- loss of
job, jail, or physical violence. Or resistance may be piecemeal, individual, and hidden as with careless or slow work, theft, or
industrial sabotage.
Indirect collective behavior responses may appear. For example, Kerkoff and Back (1968) trace the causes of the "June Bug"
epidemic, a mysterious illness with no clear medical cause that occurred among workers in a Southern textile factory, to
problems in the work setting. Such outbreaks, which are often given the unfortunate label of "hysterical contagion," seem to
occur disproportionately in work and school settings. The term is unfortunate because it is not clear that the involved persons
are hysterical, nor that the mechanism for diffusion is analogous to a physical contagion process.
Organizations that are not social movements may also be involved in the production of collective behavior. This may be quite
overt as with fashion and leisure activities industries. Fashion in women's clothes, for examples, shows elements which are
highly organized. Each season at a given place and time, well known organizations present their new fashions. The means by
which these are sold to the public are also institutionalized. The Wham-O Corporation which sells hula-hoops and frisbies has
shown rare brilliance in being able to create fads and market fads. The collective behavior lies in the public's response. There
are many organized presenters and only some of their products will catch on. A distinction can be made between There are also
fads which spread spontaneously without the organized action of entrepreneurs.
While they react to likely collective behavior settings, rather than seeking to produce them, emergency service organizations,
such as fire, police, rescue and disaster relief groups, offer additional examples of the interweaving of organizations and
collective behavior. These organizations become central actors in contexts where emergent behavior is likely.

The organization lying behind collective behavior may be covert. Governments, for example, often have a strong interest in
promoting or discouraging mass action (in either their own or other countries). For example, the role of the CIA in Iran's 1953
revolution which placed the Shah (the ruler overthrown by Khomeni) in power is well documented, as is the support given by the
former Soviet Union to the Chinese revolution. Recent decades in the U.S. have seen many examples of agent provocateur
activity. While this usually involved the actions of individuals, it sometimes involved founding and providing funds and leaders
for social movement organizations. During the 1960's, the U.S. government secretly started student, anti-war and klan groups
[Marx, 1974, Church Committee, 1976].
Public relations, advertising, and marketing organizations sometimes work for social movements, as well as more traditional
commercial clients. Political consulting is a profession which came to prominence in the 1970's. Part of the success of right wing
groups in the U.S. in the early 1980's was due to skillful organizational efforts drawing on mail communications and advertising
technology. Awareness of the covert sources of some social movement support and the role of professionals should encourage a
questioning perspective in the observer of collective behavior. The study of deception should be a part of this field. Without
falling prey to simplistic conspiracy theories, we must ask to what extent is behavior that appears spontaneous and emergent,
in fact contrived and manipulated?
Another link between collective behavior and organizations can been seen in one of the life history or career path models of
collective behavior. To understand the antecedents, or important changes, in an organization may require the study of collective
behavior. Christianity, for example, grew out of a humble social movement led by an outsider. Established American religious
groups such as the Mormons and Christian Scientists also had their origins in social movements. Venerable organizations such
as the YMCA, Salvation Army and Boy Scouts began as social movements. A great many other examples could be given.
In other cases, while the movement may not become a conventional organization, its goals or style may be taken over by
established organizations. For example, the Democratic party adopted many of the demands put forth by Norman Thomas'
socialist party in the 1930's. A related pattern characterizes some spontaneously arising fads. Once it becomes clear that there
is a market, profit seeking organizations may become involved and seek to shape and direct it.
Moving back a stage on the social movement -organizational model, calls attention to one way which social movement
organizations and more emergent forms of collective behavior may be related. The temporally sequential relation noted
previously, where social movements use crowds and attempt to reach mass audiences may be reversed. Thus a crisis or
troubling situation may lead to crowd behavior, which in turn leads to the formation of a social movement. For example as we
note in our consideration of social movements, the 1964 University of California's Berkeley Free Speech movement developed
out of demonstrations against new campus restrictions which denied students the right to hand out political literature. The many
individuals and organizations who were involved in the initial mass protest event went on to create a more organized movement
which was effective in obtaining many of its goals.
Finally, social movements can ironically be the organizational setting for internal collective behavior. This may involve fad-like
elements such as music, language, hair, and dress style (e.g., the folk music, ghetto slang, long hair, sandals, and jeans of 60's
activists which later spread to the non-involved). The distinctive behavior of a fad may have symbolic meaning and contribute to

the identity of the movement and the individuals within it. It may increase the internal solidarity of a social movement and serve
as an integrative mechanism.
Social movements are also often the setting for short term collective behavior of a protest nature. Struggles over power,
ideology, and tactics occur frequently. One common split involves moderates and radicals. The group out of power may turn the
collective behavior tactics they are experienced in using, inward. A major dynamic in the study of social movements involves
endemic factionalism.
Of course, the developments noted in the above three paragraphs are not invariant. Most social movement organizations are
unsuccessful in institutionalizing their goals. Most crowds do not result in the formation of social movements. Some crowd
activity such as scape-goating, gang struggles, or ecstatic expression may prevent, or inhibit social movement involvement and
social change. Such activity may have a cathartic effect, or involve erroneous beliefs about the cause and appropriate solution
of a problem. Widespread involvement in fads or crazes, with their focus on the self and immediate gratification, can be an
alternative to involvement in a social movement, rather than helping to bolster one. For example, at the height of their
popularity, the Soviet newspaper Pravda attacked the Beatles, claiming that they took attention away from the problems of
capitalist societies. But the links considered in the previous paragraphs alert us to connections which are often present. They are
further examples of the need to consider organizational factors in the study of collective behavior. We can thus find good
reasons why formal organizations will often be the setting for and/or the agent of collective behavior.
Earlier theorists some of whom were unduly captivated by the supposedly spontaneous, unstructured, sudden, populist,
excitable quality of collective behavior, went too far in separating collective from conventional behavior. They generally denied,
or chose not to see, the many ways that organizational behavior could be intertwined with collective behavior. Recent theorists
have taken a broader view of social behavior and have argued for the general applicability of conventional sociological
perspectives. Yet it is equally erroneous to go to the other extreme and ignore the many instances of collective behavior which
occur outside the settings of formal organization. In short, our approach should be flexible and allow for the fact that collective
behavior will occur in a variety of settings, and within (and across) these settings will show varying degrees of emergence and
organization.