Transcript Slide 1

• Crowd behaviour is an
emotional issue
– Some see them as agents of
change
– Some see them as unruly mobs
• A crowd is any group which
performs collective action
– As if one thing with a purpose
• These actions can be of any
character
– Celebration
– Mourning
– Anger
– Satisfaction
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• Crowds can vary in many
respects
– Size
– Type of leadership (defined or
loose)
– Homogeneity
– Degree of manipulation
– Many others!
• In general, people have a
negative view of crowds
– Seen as primitive, destructive
– Media feeds into this perception
– “Mob mentality” view is quite
common
– Permits required to form crowds
(they are dangerous?)
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• Crowds are interesting to
psychologists
– Occurs in the middle of the
individual-group levels
– How do so many people behave
in a similar without overt coordination?
• Many psychologists have tried
to explain how crowds work
• We will look at several
explanations for this
phenomenon
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• The Classical view (Le Bon,
1895)
• Le Bon collected the views of
several earlier authors
– Basic idea: being in a crowd
transforms you
• Proposes the psychological
law of the mental unity of
crowds
– A collective mind that forms
spontaneously
– Different from the “normal” mind
– Affects thought, emotion, and
action
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• LeBons theory:
• Crowds are irrational /
primitive, dominated by
unconscious elements
• Being in a crowd affects you:
– Homogeneity of action
– Capacity for violence increased
– Reduction responsibility
– Lowering of the intellectual
– Exaggerated emotions (easily
swayed by rumours, images, etc)
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• How does the “collective mind”
take over someone joining the
crowd?
– Anonymity causes a sense of
power
– Emotions, images etc spread via
contagion
– Leads to an increase in
suggestibility (swayed by simple
images etc)
• The central idea is regression
to a barbaric state
– change of motivation to the more
primitive
– To the level of “women, children
and savages”
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• Being in a crowd is like being
hypnotised
– LeBon thought the spinal cord
took over
• Le Bon’s book was very
influencial
– Bestseller when released
– Influenced Freud, Hitler, etc.
– Spread into lay thought
– Most people still believe some
form of this idea about crowds
• Sees no good elements in a
crowd
– Crowd == Mob
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• Criticism of Le Bon
• Hardly a “scientific” work
– Le Bon was a member of the
ruling elite “explaining” the lower
peons
– No “method” – no research, no
subjects, no observation
• Only seems to apply to a small
set of crowds
– What about peaceful crowds?
• Le Bon’s theory no longer used
by psychologists
– Some Lebonian thought still
hangs around
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• Deindividuation theory
• American psychologists look at
the crowd in the 1960s-1970s
– Zimbardo (1969),Diener (1980)
– Vietnam war era -- many
protests, some violent
• A group of theories, slight
variations on a basic theme
• All share the notion of
deindividuation
– Reduction in self-awareness/
self-control
– Occurs automatically on being in
a crowd
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• When you join a crowd
– You are perceptually immersed
(sights, sounds, dancing, etc)
– Leads to an increase in arousal
– Leads to attention shifting to the
outside (away from the self –
reduced self-monitoring)
– Leads to more responsiveness
to emotional cues, lack of
planning & impulsivity
• You are now in a state of
deindividuation
– Will continue until arousal
decreases and attention shifts
again
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• Deindividuation is both
– The process and
– The product
• Deindividuation is seen as an
altered state of consciousness
– Greater feeling of togertherness
with the group
– Time seems to pass faster
– Concentration on now
– Disinhibition which can lead to
amoral behaviour
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– You are blocked from monitoring
yourself
– Loss of self-control can lead to
aggression, violence etc
• Derived from observations of
real crowds
– Chanting, singing, etc common
– Evidence for increase in arousal
– Only some crowds turn violent
– Post-hoc reports of a different
mental state
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• Criticisms of deindividuation
theory
• A bit too similar to Le Bon
– Being in a crowd “transforms”
you into a less responsible
creature
• Still explains crowds as
destructive or dangerous
things
• Has a fair deal of empirical
support
• One of the most influencial of
the modern theories
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• Le Bon’s theory and deindividuation
theory are reductionistic
– “lay the blame” on the individual
– “contagion” – being in a crowd is like a
disease
– Occurs automatically
• The crowd is essentially still seen
as an irrational mass
– Le Bon – regression
– Deindividuation – self-control is
blocked
• Much evidence against this idea
– Even violent crowds target specific
groups, etc
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• A different take on crowds –
emergent theories
– Focus on the crowd as a group
entity
• Crowds are seen to emerge
from particular conditions
– Narrow conditions (rumours,
milling, etc)
– Wider conditions (unrest
deprivation, etc)
• The central process is
conformance
– People tend to behave in
accordance with social norms
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• Reminder: a norm is a shared
set of information in a group
– Affects behaviour
– Affects beliefs
– Affects social perceptions
(justice, prejudice, etc)
• In emergent theory, crowds are
seen as situations which cause
new norms to emerge
– Each crowd situation is unique
– Norms are defined “as you go
along”
• Individuals behave communally
due to
– social pressure to conform
– desire to conform to the group
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• Opposite of contagion theories
– Contagion: uniform, anonymous,
excitable, uncontrolled
– Emergent: communicating,
socially defined, with prescribed
limits to behaviours
• How does communality spread
then?
– Not through “contagion”
– Through rumours
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• What makes rumours special?
– Products of interest and
ambiguity (hear what you want
to)
– Certain things are included,
others left out
– Define a relevant collective
definition of what’s happening
• Rumours communicate the
new norms
– These norms emerge because
none others seem to apply to
collective action
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• Smelser’s value added theory
(1962)
– An example of an emergent
norm theory
• You begin with particular
conditions
– People want change of a social
structure
– This leads to a situation of strain
• A new norm then arises:
– A belief arises that the change
cannot occur via normal
channels (“generalized belief”)
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• The existence of the norm then
drives the crowd
• Game theory – another
example
– Special branch of maths used by
economists & political scientists
• People choose targets/actions
based on const-benefit
decisions
• The more each person thinks
the others will support him, the
more likely the actions are
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• What can we say about
emergent theories?
• Less deterministic than
contagion theories
– Crowd behaviour occurs with
rational people who make
decisions
• Crowd beaviour is seen to
have purpose
– No more “rampaging random
mob”
• Crowds are not mindless
– Self-controlling, self-justifying
structures
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• Social Psychology does the
crowd
• Reminder: a person’s identity
tends towards the social side
when
– categories become salient
– You categorize yourself in terms
of these categories
• When you self-categorize, you
adopt properties of the group
– Power differences
– Perceptions of justice, legitimacy,
etc
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• Crowd action occurs when
– Power relations are seen as
illegitimate
– No possibility of social mobility is
evident
• Under these conditions, crowd
behaviour is used as a means
of addressing social inbalances
• Still left with things to explain:
– How does “leadership” work in
crowds
– Who sets the limits on
behaviour?
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• Reicher explains this:
– It has to do with norms
– We self-stereotype into a
particular category
– We use the information from the
stereotype to tell us how to
behave
– BUT: crowd situations are often
novel and unfamiliar
– may not have a norm, or may not
know which to use
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• Answer: we look to see what
other people are doing
• Look for exemplary members
– Those who most closely fit the
stereotype
• Observe the behaviour and
induce what we should be
doing
• The exemplary members are
not “leaders” (but they could
be)
– Simply used as guides to how to
act
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