Collective Behavior and Social Movements: A Comprehensive Guide

Posted on Aug 20, 2024 in Social sciences

Collective Behavior and Social Movements

What are Social Movements?

Social movement: Organized activity that encourages or discourages social change.

What is Collective Behaviour?

Collective behaviour: Activity involving a large number of people, often spontaneous, and usually in violation of established norms (e.g., mobs, riots, and crowds; rumor and gossip; public opinion; fashions and fads; panic and mass hysteria).

Studying Collective Behaviour

Collective behavior is hard to study because:

It is diverse: Involves a wide range of human action & It is variable: hard to explain
Much collective behaviour is transitory

Collectivity: A large number of people whose minimal interaction occurs in the absence of well-defined and conventional norms:

People in collectivities have little or no social interactions
They have no clear social boundaries
They generate weak and unconventional norms

Localized Collectivities: Crowds

Crowd: A temporary gathering of people who share a common focus of attention and who influence one another:

A casual crowd: A loose collection of people who interact little if at all, e.g., people at an accident
A conventional crowd: Planned and follows a clear set of norms, e.g., a lecture, a celebrity’s funeral
An expressive crowd: An event with emotional appeal, e.g., a New Year’s Eve at Times Square
An acting crowd: Motivated by an intense, single-minded purpose, e.g., fleeing from a mall after hearing gunshots

Mobs & Riots

Mob: A highly emotional crowd that pursues a violent or destructive goal, e.g., a lynch mob
Riot: A social eruption that is highly emotional, violent, and undirected. They often serve as collective expressions of social injustice. Social change: Well-organized masses pose a threat to the power of elites

Explaining Crowd Behaviour

Contagion Theory:

Crowd exerts a hypnotic effect over their members and takes on a life of its own. People forget about personal responsibility shielded by the anonymity of the crowd.

Critical review: Crowd actions result from policies and decisions made by specific individuals. Emotions not necessarily irrational, they can reflect real fear or result from an injustice.

Convergence Theory

Crowd behaviour comes from the particular people who join in
Convergence of like-minded individuals
They express existing beliefs and values (E.g., the crowds that formed at demonstrations protesting globalization, as in Quebec City in 2001, were like-minded)

Critical review: People sometimes do things in crowds they would not do alone, and crowds may intensify emotions.

Emergent Norm Theory

If similar interests draw people into a crowd, distinctive patterns of behaviour may emerge
Rules are made as they go along (E.g., many Iraqi citizens began looting government buildings after American troops toppled Saddam Hussein, others tried to stop the lawlessness)

Critical review: Middle ground approach = suggests that people take on different roles (E.g., leader, lieutenant, follower)

Dispersed Collectivities: Mass Behaviour

Mass behaviour: Collective behaviour among people spread over a wide geographic area
Rumor: Unconfirmed information spread informally, often by word of mouth: Thrives in uncertainty, Unstable & Difficult to stop
Gossip: Rumor about people’s personal affairs, tends to be localized

Rumor Defined (Detail)

Rumor: Unconfirmed information spread informally, often by word of mouth: Thrives in uncertainty. People lack clear and certain information about an important issue [Not knowing anything about Conservative candidate Steven Harper helped Liberal candidate, Paul Martin, win the 2004 election]
Unstable: People give change rumors adding “spin” to suit their own interests. [Liberals and NDP had a slant on “hidden agenda” rumor, while Conservatives had another.]
Difficult to stop: Rumors spread quickly as information is retold. Controlling a rumor requires a believable source to issue a clear and convincing statement of the facts. [Winning the 2006 election, Harper seen as having no “hidden agenda”]
Public Opinion: Widespread attitudes about controversial issues (E.g., in Canada, public opinion issues have included: Killing of seal pups, Quebec separatism)
Propaganda: Information presented with the intention of shaping public opinion. A thin line separates information from propaganda
Fashion: A social pattern favored by a large number of people. In pre-industrial societies, clothing and personal appearance change very little. In industrial societies, there is much change in fashion. Involves conspicuous consumption (E.g., tastes in clothing, music, automobiles, and ideas about politics)
Fad: An unconventional social pattern that people embrace briefly, but enthusiastically. Common in high-income societies. Fads capture the public imagination but quickly burn out (E.g., the 1950s “hula hoop,” or Pokémon cards)
Disasters: An event, generally unexpected, that causes extensive harm to people and damage to property. Natural: hurricane, earthquake, etc. Technological: oil spill, nuclear explosion (e.g., Chernobyl) Intentional: war, terrorist attacks, genocide (e.g., Rwanda)

A Never-Ending Disaster:

South Pacific, one of the Marshall Islands; only 159 people lived by fishing, as their ancestors had done for centuries. More than 50 years after the atomic bomb exploded on nearby Bikini Island

People on Utrik Island still talk about the morning that “everything changed.”

The damage from this disaster is more than medical (radiation poisoning); it is a social transformation that has left the people with a deep belief that they are all sick, that life will never be the same.

Islanders believe people could have prevented the disaster but did not.

Controversy and Debate

Pessimism about our society is widespread
About 70 percent of Canadians believe that, in financial terms, the lot of the average person is getting worse.
Only a quarter of us have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence, respectively, in our federal and provincial leaders.
We feel the rich, corporations, and politicians have too much power, and that politicians are paid too much.
We fear crime. And 85 percent of us believe that the “courts do not deal harshly enough with criminals” (Bibby,1995).
Up to 60 percent of Canadians do not trust politicians.
Forty-six (46) percent worry that they would not be able to meet expenses if they were to become critically ill.
Forty (40) percent feel stressed because life is beyond control and the world is changing too quickly (Bricker & Wright, 2005).

C. Wright Mills

Many of the problems we encounter as individuals are caused by the structure of society.
Mills maintained that solutions to many of life’s challenges depend on collective effort—that is, on people willing to join together to take a stand for their beliefs.

Social Movements

Organized activity that encourages or discourages social change
Three major dynamic sources of social change in Canada: Class relations, Regional identity, The bilingual and multicultural nature of our society

Types of Social Movements

Alternative: Least threatening, limited change for a limited number of members (E.g., planned parenthood)
Redemptive: Selective focus, radical change (E.g., Alcoholics Anonymous)
Reformative: Limited social change that targets all members of society (E.g., anti-abortion and pro-choice movements)
Revolutionary: Most severe, strives for basic transformation of society (E.g., Quebec’s sovereignist (separatist) movement)

Claims Making:

The process of trying to convince the public and public officials of the importance of joining a social movement to address a particular issue

Gay communities mobilized to alert people to AIDS
The Aboriginal rights movement tries to increase public awareness of issues relating to land claims, social justice, and quality of life
The Quebec student protest that began during the winter semester of 2012

Explaining Social Movements

Deprivation Theory:

Social movements seeking change arise among people who feel deprived

Relative deprivation: Perceived disadvantage from a specific comparison

Mass Society Theory:

Socially isolated people seek out social movements as a way to gain a sense of belonging and importance. Categories of people with weak social ties are those most eager to join a social movement

Critical Review: It is a theory that is difficult to test & ignores the social justice issues that movements address

Structural Strain Theory

Six factors encourage the development of social movements:

Structural conduciveness: problems exist
Structural strain: relative deprivation
Growth and spread of an explanation: causes and its solutions spread
Precipitating factors: a specific event sparks collective action
Mobilization for action: people are ready to take action
Lack of social control: success depends on the response of political officials

Resource Mobilization Theory:

Any social movement rises or falls on how well it attracts resources, mobilizes people, and forges alliances

Technology has been crucial to the development of social movements (recently Facebook and Twitter have expanded organizing possibilities)

Critical Review: Movements with few resources may turn to violence to call attention to their cause. Relatively powerless segments of a population can promote change if they: Are able to organize effectively, Have strongly committed members (E.g., the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s)

Culture Theory:

Sociologists recognize that social movements depend not only on material resources and the structure of political power but also on cultural symbols.

People in any particular situation are likely to mobilize to form a social movement

only to the extent that they develop “shared understandings of the world that legitimate and motivate collective action.”

Social movements gain strength as they develop symbols and a sense of community that both build strong feelings and directs energy into organized action

In part, mobilization depends on a sense of injustice, as suggested by deprivation theory; in addition, people must come to believe that they are not able to respond to their situation effectively by acting alone. Examples of powerful visual images: Pictures of gay people celebrating their weddings. Burning World Trade Center towers after terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001

Critical Review: Strong symbols like flags, ideas about patriotism, and respecting leadership, can help support the status quo (thus preventing meaningful change)

New Social Movements Theory

Social movements in the post-industrial societies of North America and Western Europe have a new focus: On quality of life issues, International issues (global ecology, pacifism/opposition to war, women, gay and animal rights)
Focus is on non-economic issues so usually draw support from middle and upper-middle classes
Many affluent people are conservative (have wealth to protect) on economic issues, and liberal (have extensive education) on social issues

Critical Review: Differences between the past and present are also exaggerated

Recent social movements in the post-industrial societies of North America and Western Europe have a new focus.
Older social movements (led by labor organizations) are concerned mostly with economic issues.
New social movements focus on improving our social and physical surroundings. E.g., Environmental movement—trying to stop global warming/climate change and other environmental dangers.

Gender & Social Movements:

Gender figures prominently in the operation of social movements

More men than women tend to take part in public life, including leading social movements
Women have played leading roles in many social movements, but male dominance has been the norm

Stages in Social Movements

Emergence: Perception that something is wrong
Coalescence: Defines itself, recruits members, and devises strategies and tactics
Bureaucratization: Organizes rationally to get the job done
Decline: Is the movement in need

Social Movements & Social Change

Social movements exist to encourage or resist change.
The political life of our society is based largely on the claims and counter-claims of social movements that identify problems and suggest the right solutions.
Many have achieved important goals (E.g., gender equality, gay rights movement, and environmentalism)
Major social transformations, like the industrial revolution, gave rise to workers’ movements which reduced working hours, ended child labor, made the workplace safer, established the right to bargain collectively with employers.
Canadian society has been influenced by social movements, especially since the 1960s.
The scope of social movements is likely to increase:
Previously disadvantaged categories of people are strengthening their political voices. It’s easy to stay abreast of events due to technology. Also, with new technology, people are uniting around the world

Collective Behavior and Social Movements: A Comprehensive Guide