How the crowd transforms the individual

Collective behavior  extraordinary activities

• Carried out by groups of people
• Examples: lynching, rumors, panics, urban legends
• Charles MacKay (1814-1889), A British journalist wrote in 1841;
• MacKay noticed people “when mad” and did “disgraceful and violent things” when formed in a crowd
• People have a “herd mentality”
• Peope are like of herd of cows that suddenly stampede.
• Gustave Lebon (1841-1931) A French Psychologist
• People feel anonymous in crowds
• People feel less accountable for what they do in crowds
• People develop feelings of invincibility and think they could do anything
• Collective mind: Gustave’s term for the tendency of people in a crowd to fee, think and act in extraordinary
ways
• Robert Park (1864-1944) US Sociologist
• Social unrest is transmitted from one individual to another. So that manifestations of discontent in A
communicated in B, and B reflected back to A.
• Circular reaction: Robert Park’s term for a back-and-forth communication between the members of a crown,
whereby a “collective impulse” is transmitted
• Collective impulse dominates all members of the crowd
• Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) The Acting Crowd
• In 1939 he identified five stages that precede what he called an acting crowd
• Acting crowd: an excited group moving towards a goal
• Models today’s police manuals on crowd behavior
Blumer’s 5 Stages of an Acting Crowd
• Five Stages of an Acting Crowd
1. Tension or unrest (people become apprehensive, which makes them
vulnerable to rumors and suggestions)
2. Exciting event (an event occurs)
3. Milling (people talk about the exciting event)
4. A common object of attention (attend forms around the event)
5. Common impulses (people form an agreement about the event
A SHORT Time to Ponder:
• Why do you think people behave differently in a collective setting?
• Why do you think people feel less responsible for their actions during
collective behavior?
• How do you think the collective mindset of a person comes to be?
The Contemporary View: Rationality of the
Crowd
• Everyone is collected in a mob in is organized (not chaotic)
• Richard Berk in 1974
• Minimax strategy – people make effort to minimize their costs and maximize
their rewards
• Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian
• Emergent norms – idea that people develop new norms to cope with a new
situation
• used to explain crowd behavior
• In a group, not normal behavior can become normal
Emergent Norms
1. ego involved – people feel personal stake in the unusual event
2. concerned – personal interest in the event, but care less than the
ego-involved
3. insecure – care little about the matter, but they join the crowd
because it gives them power
4. curious spectator – care little about the issue, but they are
inquisitive
5. exploiters – don’t care about the event, but their for their own
purpose
A SHORT Time to Ponder
• How could collective behavior involve unusual norms?
• How does Pettie’s mob include the different players in a collective
group?
• Do you agree with the analysis of these 5 groups? Do you think they
should take one away? Add a category? Why?