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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term "collective behavior" was first used by Robert E. Park, and employed
definitively by Herbert Blumer, to refer to social processes and events which
do not reflect existing social structure (laws, conventions, and institutions),
but which emerge in a "spontaneous" way.
Collective behavior might also be defined as action which is neither conforming
(in which actors follow prevailing norms) nor deviant (in which actors violate
those norms). Collective behavior, a third form of action, takes place when
norms are absent or unclear, or when they contradict each other. Scholars have
devoted far less attention to collective behavior than they have to either
conformity or deviance.
Defining the field
The classic delineation of the field is to be found in Herbert Blumer's essay,
"An Outline of Collective Behavior." The topics in this Wikipedia essay follow
Blumer's outline. This approach can be justified on the basis of the relevance
of Blumer's scheme to Thomas Kuhn's well-known notion of "paradigms" in
science. Kuhn confesses that he uses the word, paradigm, in something like
twenty different senses, but for present purposes it will mean a set of
propositions, and of techniques which can be used to test these propositions
empirically. Each phase in the history of a mature science, such as physics or
biology, is ruled by its paradigm, and "normal science" conforms to it. But at
some point there are so many discrepancies and illogicalities in the science's
findings that a "scientific revolution" takes place, and scientists flock to a
new paradigm.
Sociology is too immature as a science to have a true paradigm, but it does
have what might be called "proto-paradigms," sets of propositions and
techniques which both summarize evidence already acquired and provide guidance
for future studies. A number of sociologists have offered proto-paradigms,
notably Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons. Blumer also has created a
proto-paradigm. In contrast to true paradigms, however. the evidence collected
by a man working within a proto-paradigm is less decisive, and the theoretical
guidance which it provides is less sure.
Blumer presents a radical critique of the overwhelming bulk of sociological
schemes, on the ground that they treat the actor as passive-- as controlled by
social forces which act on him as physical stimuli act on an organism. To
Blumer social "forces" are not really forces. The actor is active: He creates
an interpretion of the acts of others, and acts on the basis of this
interpretation.
Blumer's proto-paradigm has influenced some empirical research into collective
behavior, a field which until recently had almost no data to offer. Theories,
such as Blumer's, endure and are useful but, as is true of science in general,
the empirical studies for which they provide guidance are of only fleeting
interest. Once further research supplants them they are of only historical
interest.
[edit] Examples of Collective Behavior
Here are some instances of collective behavior: the frequent use of the word,
"like," among adolescent girls, the national debates in Canada and the U.S.
about whether to ratify the Kyoto protocols, a change from 50% market
saturation by the WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS word processing program to the even
more widespread use of Microsoft Word, and the Esperanto movement for a neutral
international language. The claim that such diverse episodes all belong to a
single field of inquiry is a theoretical assertion, and not all sociologists
would agree with it. But Blumer and Neil Smelser, when they were alive, did
agree, as did others, so that no one can deny that the formulation has
satisfied some sociological minds.
[edit] Four forms of collective behavior
[edit] The crowd
Scholars differ about what classes of social events fall under the rubric of
collective behavior. In fact, the only class of events which all authors
include is crowds. Clark McPhail is one of those who treat crowds and
collective behavior as synonyms. His important contribution is to have gone
beyond the speculations of others to carry out pioneering empirical studies of
crowds. He finds them to form an elaborate set of types.
The classic treatment of crowds is Gustave LeBon, The Crowd: A Study of the
Popular Mind (1896), in which the author, a frightened aristocrat, interpreted
the crowds of the French Revolution as irrational reversions to animal emotion,
and inferred from this that such reversion is characteristic of crowds in
general. Freud expressed a similar view in Group Psychology and the Analysis of
the Ego (1922). Such authors have thought that their ideas were confirmed by
various kinds of crowds, one of these being the economic bubble. In Holland,
during the tulip mania (1637), the prices of tulip bulbs rose to astronomical
heights. An array of such crazes and other historical oddities is narrated in
Charles MacKay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
(1841).
At the University of Chicago, Robert Park and Herbert Blumer agreed with the
speculations of LeBon and other that crowds are indeed emotional. But to them a
crowd is capable of any emotion, not only the negative ones of anger and fear.
A number of authors modify the common-sense notion of the crowd to include
episodes during which the participants are not assembled in one place but are
dispersed over a large area. Turner and Killian refer to such episodes as
diffuse crowds, examples being Billy Graham's revivals, panics about sexual
perils, and Red scares. Their expanded definition of the crowd is justified if
propositions which hold true among compact crowds do so for diffuse crowds as
well.
Some psychologists have claimed that there are three fundamental human
emotions: fear, joy, and anger. Neil Smelser, John Lofland, and others have
proposed three corresponding forms of the crowd: the panic (an expression of
fear), the craze (an expression of joy), and the hostile outburst (an
expression of anger). Each of the three emotions can characterize either a
compact or a diffuse crowd, the result being a scheme of six types of crowds.
Lofland has offered the most explicit discussion of these types.
[edit] The public
Park distinguishes the crowd, which expresses a common emotion, from a public,
in which discusses a single issue. Thus, a public is not equivalent to all of
the members of a society. Obviously, this is not the usual use of the word,
"public." To Park and Blumer, there are as many publics as there are issues. A
public comes into being when discussion of an issue begins, and ceases to be
when it reaches a decision on it.
The use of sample surveys, which purportedly measure public opinion, now almost
constitutes an academic discipline in itself. But Blumer excoriates its
practitioners: Their highly sophisticated studies are based on the idea that
each participant in the public can be counted as one, and that the percentage
of persons holding one opinion or another on the issue in question accurately
measures the strength of public opinion. Blumer complains that in fact
participants enter into discussion to different degrees, and that they have
differing amounts of influence on the public's final decision. A skid row bum,
he reminds us, is not as influential as an archbishop.
[edit] The mass
To the crowd and the public Blumer adds a third form of collective behavior,
the mass. It differs from both the crowd and the public in that it is defined
not by a form of interaction but by the efforts of those who use the mass media
to address an audience. The first mass medium was printing. After many years,
other mass media were invented, and the rate of invention has accelerated over
the years. The impact of the mass on society has become greater and greater, so
that in our time the mass has enormous social impact. The study of mass
communications, like public opinion polling, has almost become an academic
field.
The mass media attempt to persuade actors to choose among a set of options
which are offered--brands of refrigerators, computers, and deodorants, for
example. Just as the public acts by resolving an issue, the mass acts when its
members choose among the options offered. If participants in a mass choose to
watch a popular TV show, many viewers may run to the bathroom during commercial
breaks, forcing the city fathers to float bond issues to increase sewage
disposal facilities.
Contrary to Blumer, evidence confirms the common sense view that consumers do
not usually act in isolation, but often discuss their choices. For this reason
Turner and Killian suggest that the mass is best thought of as what Max Weber
calls an "ideal type" -- not an accurate description of empirical cases, but a
concept created by the sociological observer, who finds it useful in
interpreting particular events insofar as they approximate it. One might go
further and suggest that most or all terms in the field refer to ideal types.
Clearly there are crowds which exhibit the properties of both panics and
crazes. Often an episode is on the border between categories, and this is true
of various other categories in the study of collective behavior.
[edit] The social movement
We change intellectual gears when we confront Blumer's final form of collective
behavior, the social movement. He identifies several types of these, among
which are active social movements such as the French Revolution and expressive
ones such as Alcoholics Anonymous. An active movement tries to change society;
an expressive one tries to change its own members.
The social movement is the form of collective behavior which satisfies least
well the first definition of it which was offered at the beginning of this
article. These episodes are less fluid than the other forms, and do not change
as often as other forms do. Furthermore, as can be seen in the history of the
labor movement and many religious sects, a social movement may begin as
collective behavior but over time become firmly established as a social
institution.
For this reason, social movements are often considered a separate field of
sociology. The books and articles about them are far more numerous than the sum
of studies of all the other forms of collective behavior put together. Social
movements are considered in many Wikipedia articles, and an article on the
field of social movements as a whole would be much longer than this essay.
There have never been many specialists in collective behavior. These few have
typically been students of Park and Blumer at Chicago, or, more recently, of
Blumer and Smelser at Berkeley. Thus, collective behavior has been a school of
thought as well as a subfield of sociology. Like the subfield of social change,
some might complain that it is mot a field but an incoherent jumble of topics.
This not true of subfields of sociology which are defined by common sense, such
as the sociology of the family, politics, or religion.
The study of collective behavior spun its wheels for many years, but began to
make progress with the appearance of Smelser's Theory of Collective Behavior
(1962), a book which has been called the most important book on the topic
during the twentieth century. Social disturbances in the U. S. and elsewhere in
the late 60's and early 70's inspired another surge of interest in crowds and
social movements. These studies present a number of challenges to the armchair
sociology of earlier students of collective behavior.
[edit] Theories developed to explain crowd behavior
Social scientists have developed theories to explain crowd behavior.
1. Contagion Theory - the Contagion Theory was formulated by Gustave Le Bon.
According to him, crowds exert a hypnotic influence over their members.
Shielded by their anonymity, large numbers of people abandon personal
responsibility and surrender to the contagious emotions of the crowd. A crowd
thus assumes a life of its own, stirring up emotions, and friving people toward
irrational, even violent action. Le Bon's Theory, although one of the earliest
explanations of crowd behavior, is still used by many people. However, critics
argue that the "collective mind" has not been documented by systematic studies.
Furthermore, although collective behavior may involve strong emotions, such
feelings are not necessarily irrational.
2. Convergence Theory - whereas the Contagion Theory states that crowds cause
people to act in a certain way, Convergence theory states that people who want
to act in a certain way come together to form crowds. It asserts that people
with similar attributes find other like-minded persons with whom they can
release underlying tendencies. People sometimes do things in a crowd that they
would not have the courage to do alone because crowds can diffuse
responsibility. Crowds, in addition, can intensify a sentiment simply by
creating a critical mass of like-minded people.
3. Emergent-Norm Theory - according to Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian, crowds
begin as collectivities composed of people with mixed interests and motives.
Especially in the case of less stable crowds expressive, acting and protest
crowds norms may be vague and changing, as when one person decides to break the
glass windows of a store and others join in and begin looting merchandise. In
short, people in crowds make their own rules as they go along.
Decision-making plays a major role in crowd behavior, although casual observes
of the crowd may not realize it. In emergent-norm theory, people in a crowd
take on different roles: some step forward as leaders, others become followers,
inactive bystanders, or even opponents.
[edit] Criticisms and Evidence
Richard Berk has used game theory to suggest that even a during panic in a
burning theater actors may conduct themselves rationally. This is a striking
suggestion, given that panics have been described as the purest form of
collective behavior. Berk contends that if the members of the audience decide
that it is more rational to run to the exits than to walk, the result may look
like an animal-like stampede without in actually being irrational. Berk's idea
is a plausible hypothesis, but some might say that once again a scholar has
tried to contribute to the field without rising from his armchair.
A major exception is the work of Clark McPhail, mentioned above, who has
examined many actual human gatherings. In The Myth of the Madding Crowd, he
concludes that such assemblies can be seen as lying along a number of
dimensions, and that traditional stereotypes of emotionality and unanimity
often do not describe what happens.