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Ministry of education and science, youth and sport of Ukraine

NTU “KhPI”

Essay

on the subject: Social science

topic: Types of crowd and forms of mass behavior

Kharkov, 2011

Introduction

All people are leaving in a society. And all of them are integral part of people's masses, surrounding them. Each of them had faced the “crowd” at least once in one or another form. The crowd can be seen in public transport, on a public celebration, in demonstrations, remonstrance actions. Sometimes crowd can be dangerous and have destructive character, so it is very important for everyone to know the factors that are threatening public safety at events attended by large numbers of people has been the focus of recent research on mass gatherings. There is a need to understand crowd behavior to support appropriate and timely crowd management principles in the planning and provision of emergency services at mass gatherings. This paper provides a review of the current understanding of the psychological factors in the behavior of crowds within the psychosocial domain.

The aim of this work is to:

ѕ explain the meaning of crowd ;

ѕ describe the main characteristics of crowd ;

ѕ classify the main types of crowd;

ѕ describe mass behavior;

The target of the work is to:

ѕ clarify the understanding of term “crowd” and main mechanisms of mass behavior.

The term “crowd” has been used in many contexts. In the literature, the terms “crowd” and “mass gathering” often are used interchangeably. First of all, it is necessary to clarify the question of what is meant by the crowd. Here a clear distinction between the traditional interpretation of the phenomenon of the crowd from a political and a sociological point of view.

From a political point of view, as in the foreign literature, and in this country, the crowd is seen as a manifestation of any mass protest unauthorized government, which is not entirely true.

From a sociological point of view of a crowd is to be understood initially unorganized or organized gathering of people has lost, not having a common purpose or conscious has lost it, and usually in a state of emotional arousal.

However, there is no consistent definition of crowd. In the mass-gathering literature, the use of terms “crowd behavior”, “crowd type”, “crowd management”, and “crowd mood” are used in variable contexts. The notions of crowd, crowd mood, crowd type, and crowd behavior have a number of applications.

Let's make an overview, and make deployeddescriptions of these terms.

1. Definition of term “Crowd” and its main features

The crowd - this is a temporary gathering of people united in a confined physical space of common interests. The social structure of the crowd is very simple and rarely more complicated than division winners and all the rest. But the crowd - it is something more than a simple aggregation of individuals. Physically limited space leads to social interaction, even in cases where people in the crowd trying to avoid interpersonal contact. Simple awareness of presence around other people leads to an implicit, but rich experiences to the exchange, based on communicating with the avoidance of eye contact, facial expression on the face, gestures, postures, and even styles of dress.

Individuals of crowds are not necessarily present in one place. It is enough that they have a uniformity of thought and feelings. For example, the crowd can be an entire nation. Education of the crowd does not depend on the number of constituent elements. The crowd can be made by a few people, but if there are no prerequisites- then a hundred people do not turn into the crowd. Life of a crowd is quite different in length - from several minutes to several months. The collective soul of the crowd is unconscious but the main role is played by unconscious racial hereditary component. Thanks to them, and individuals may join the crowd, conscious also separates them

The crowd is very different in character and behavior. A crowd of one type can be quickly transformed into a crowd of other types, such as the raging mob. However, most of the crowd have certain common characteristics: 1. Suggestibility. People in the crowd tend to be more suggestible than outside it. They are more likely to accept opinions, feelings and actions of the majority. 2. Anonymity. The individual feels insignificant, and unrecognized in a crowd. The crowd often acts as a whole and its individual members do not stand out and do not perceive themselves as separate individuals. 3. Spontaneity. People, who make up the crowd, tend to be more spontaneous manner of behavior than in normal conditions. As a rule, they do not reflect on their actions and their behavior in a crowd depends solely on emotion. 4. Invulnerability. The people that make up the crowd, are anonymous, so they begin to feel out of social control, knowing that they are difficult to “be get” For example, in the acts of vandalism, rampaging football fans (smashing windows, damaging seats in subway cars and other similar actions), each of the participating disclaims any responsibility for it, acting all together as one.

There are several terms that can describe a crowd: crowd type, crowd mood, crowd behavior;

Crowd type - is an environmental descriptor of the demographics of a crowd.

Crowd mood hails from the crowd type and is more of a psychosocial descriptor of crowd.

Crowd behavior - is the demonstrable factor that requires assessment and monitoring to underpin management actions.

Crowd type, crowd dynamics, and crowd mood impact crowd behavior.

So, we have found out that crowd is gathering of people and the size of the gathering is less important than the aim that unites it. There are several characteristics that describe crowd. They are - suggestibility, anonymity, spontaneity, invulnerability. There are several terms that can describe a crowd: crowd type, crowd mood, crowd behavior;

2. Mass Behavior

2.1 Definition of mass behavior

Mass behavior - type of collective behavior, the result of the impact of mass-media. This behavior is characterized by uniform reactions, loss of individual assessments, and orientation. Crowd behavior is the sum of its individual member's behavior, and can't be independently existing and emerging out of nowhere "social aspirations".

An examination of more recent studies on crowd behavior at a variety of events that utilized or confirmed recent psychological theories of crowd behavior, revealed a number of reoccurring themes. Crowd mood and behavior were acknowledged as complex phenomena influenced by social conditions, spectator personalities, and the dynamism and situational changes of the environment.

Several other researchers have observed that supported aspects of action and interaction. It was concluded by Young that the spectators' need to establish forms of group identification (based on a wide range of factors such as racial, religious, ethnic, and team loyalties) probably was a contributing factor to crowd disorder at sporting events. In their exploration of the development of group identification in response to anticipated and actual changes in the intergroup hierarchy. An investigation into the bias of in-group and out-group evaluations among sport spectators indicated that situations involving threat to one's social identity enhances bias and that the greatest bias was exhibited by the most highly identified fans.

It is clear that crowd behavior must be understood as inter-group interaction and the different perspectives of in- and out-group must be recognized. There are major differences among the approach of out-group, such as police, compared to crowd members' accounts of events, reveals the latter group focusing on meaningfulness of crowd action.

Crowds were more likely to become involved in conflict when conflicting behavior is deemed legitimate because out-group behavior is seen to violate proper social practice or when conflict is considered to be an effective way to meet desired ends. The spread of conflict was related to the degree of change in self-categorization of social identity and when the out-group fails to differentiate between groups within the crowd. Inter-group dynamics are crucial to the onset and development of crowd conflict.

2.2 Main characteristics of mass behavior

crowd behavior person mass

The question then becomes: is it possible to give a general definition of crowd behaviour that comprises all the usual varieties, but not much more? When we try to do this, three properties of crowd behaviour seem to be relevant: size, co-presence and uncertainty.

First and most obvious is the fact that crowd denotes a large group of people. Interesting then is the question for the lower boundary of the crowd concept. Can a group of two people act as a crowd? Do we need then at least ten, or maybe a hundred? There is no obvious way of deciding in this matter. At certain moments half a dozen men might constitute a psychological crowd, but this seems a typical example of his predilection for making loose, intuitive statements. The fact that rather small groups can act in a crowd-like fashion leads us to another complicating factor, namely that it is not so much the group under consideration that determines crowd-like behaviour, but rather its imbeddedness in a crowd or crowd-like context. Instances of this can be found in football hooliganism, in crazes or fads, in economic crashes or in panic situations. This crowd-like context can be real, but also more or less imaginary, as in small groups of hooligans operating quite detached from actual crowds, or of small groups of boys wreaking havoc on school buildings or telephone booths.

For practical matters, such as crowd management, it remains however an important factor. The problem seems to be that problematic crowd behaviour is almost independent of numbers, but that crowd management poses different demands according to numbers.

The other side of the matter is the question: Is there an upper boundary? The answer to this can be an easy: No. There is no concept for a larger grouping of people than 'crowd'. The theoretical upper boundary of a crowd is then the number of people on earth.

The conclusion concerning size as a definitory factor is rather disappointing: Almost any size will do, but small groups (from 2 to 10 people) usually only show crowd- or crowd-like behaviour in a larger crowd-like context, or in very special, highly compelling situations. Larger groups can create their own context, the larger they are, the easier this happens, thus we usually reserve the term mass or crowd for groupings of about 50 upward. This delineates crowd psychology from fields such as group dynamics or micro sociology, that deal with small groups, nevertheless it does not seem very useful to give size an important role in the definition of crowd behaviour.

Another conclusion can be that what we call the crowd is only in very special cases synonymous with those acting within its context, very often the crowd is the context

A second property of crowd-behaviour is that it is shown by people gathered in one place, forming a more or less continuous gathering. This delimits the field of crowd-behaviour from those of political, economic or communicative behaviour. In the latter branches of social science people explicitly do not have to be in each other's vicinity to show interesting behaviour. It also implies that collectivises such as families, tribes, or populations only have the liability to become a crowd when assembled. When people are near to each other, the possibility of direct interaction emerges, and this clearly is a condition for speaking of crowd-behaviour. The interaction does not have to be verbal or even very explicit and clear, it suffices that people see, and hear, eventually smell or feel each other. Thus people in a crowd perceive the reactions of others, be it on their own behaviour or to some occurrence, like the jokes of a comedian, a bomb exploding, or people moving in a certain direction, and in their turn react to the occurrence or on the behaviour of others. The messages that comprise the interaction are thus mostly very simple and quite often of an emotional kind, such as seeing aggression, hearing cries of joy or laughter, seeing people flee or getting angry. All these can be viewed as simple messages that have a certain influence on the onlooker. As these kinds of very simple interaction cannot be avoided when people are in each other's vicinity, the most sensible second defining property is Co-presence. This part of the definition is crucial in delineating crowd psychology from the psychology of mass communication.

That people have to be gathered in a certain space does not at all imply that the behaviour of all present will be uniform. Within the, often very loose and changing perimeters many sub groupings can be present, showing different kinds and intensities of behaviour.

The third, and most important criterion for speaking of crowd-behaviour is that the normal rules of behaviour and the normal forms of organisation partly and for a limited time lose their power, and that new and quite often simpler norms and organisations emerge. It is especially this feature that makes crowd phenomena unpredictable, as predictability supposes regularity, through organisation, roles, norms and rules. In normal, everyday interaction people are supposed, and indeed compelled by a large set of mostly implicit norms, to inhibit their more direct impulses. A good description of this kind of constraints can be found in Goffman's 'Behaviour in public places' (1963). As soon as the situation becomes so that these normal rules do not function anymore, people are more or less left to their own devices. In such a situation of uncertainty and equivocality new norms can and will be developed, although this may not be an absolute necessity.

This characteristic of crowd behaviour can also be described in a more sociological manner. Culture, which in some of its aspects can be seen as a form of organisation, is for some social settings a very powerful determinator of behaviour (e.g. ceremonies, work situations), while for other settings, notably for crowd situations, relatively few cultural patterns, in the form of norms or roles, lie ready at hand. It is characteristic for the sociological stance that these authors then become more interested in regularities in the organisation of social movements, than in the unorganised parts. This tendency to be especially interested in the unorganised workings of the crowd is recognizable in all forms of crowd psychology, as opposed to crowd sociology. Collective self-objectification (the process by which people assign meaning to themselves) is a key contributor to the empowerment arising from group action. This has potential for assisting our further understanding of mass gathering mood and behavior and has implications for a greater understanding of the conditions under which small groups may control violent masses.

So, mass behavior - type of collective behavior, the result of the impact of mass-media. There are three properties of crowd behaviour seem to be relevant: size, co-presence and uncertainty. The size is not very important it can vary from 10 and to large amounts of people. That people have to be gathered in a certain space for continuous period and the behaviour of all present will be uniformly directed. The crowd usually act not normally and new and quite often simpler norms and organisations emerge.

3. The main crowds' classifications

Crowds can be divided into several types depending on the method of their formation and behavior. According to the degree of organization:

1. Spontaneous crowd. Occurs spontaneously, is not organized by some persons. To this species are those of the crowd like a crowd of people on the subway or in the foyer of the cinema. Although they have gathered on a particular occasion, the crowd itself is not the instigators.

2. Led by crowd. The crowd, organized by the leaders. In this crowd there is instigators. An interesting view of the response of the crowd is a flashmob (English flash mob) - a crowd of people suddenly gather in one place and just as suddenly disappear. Flashmob usually organized through the Internet.

3. Organized crowd. The crowd, which has pronounced the organization ordering. Gustave Le Bon introduced the notion, which regarded such form, as a company of soldiers and even the parliamentary session, a kind of crowd. Le Bon also used the term inspired the crowd, emphasizing that there is a crowd of his own soul. Many researchers do not agree with such an expanded interpretation and believe that the crowd can only be called an unorganized mass of people.

By the nature of human behavior:

1. Occasional crowd - a bunch of curious (spectators), such a crowd that had gathered on the occasion of an automobile accident.

2. Conventional crowd - a crowd that had gathered to advance the well-known occasion (festival, carnival, etc.)

3. Expressive crowd - the crowd, expressing the common emotions (protest, triumph, etc.).

4. Ecstatic crowd - the crowd, enveloped ecstasy.

5. Active crowd - the crowd, performed physical activities. Includes subspecies: 5.1 An aggressive mob - human weight committing destructive acts. 5.2 Panic crowd - a crowd of fleeing from someone (something). 5.3 Profit-seeking crowd - the crowd, fighting for the values. 5.4 Insurgent crowd - a crowd of opposing the authorities.

If the crowd or in part in any way moved, it can result in the following classification:

1. The sparse crowd - each component of an individual can move relatively freely in any chosen direction.

2. Fossilized crowd - the movement of an individual is possible only in the general direction of the whole crowd, as attempts to deviate from it meet increasing resistance.

3. Monolithic crowd - every individual independent motion is impossible, the pressure in the crowd exceeded the capacity of the human body, each concerned with only their own survival, crush.

It can be concluded that the crowds can be classified according to several criteria: according to the degree of organization, by the nature of human behavior, if the crowd or in part in any way moved. By first criteria there are following groups: spontaneous, led by, organized crowd. By the second: occasional, conventional, expressive, esthetic, active crowd. By the third: sparse, fossilized, monolithic crowd.

4. The behavior of person in a crowd

The behavior of person in a crowd strictly differs from its normal behavior and here are the main aspects of behavior in a crowd

Firstly, disappears "I-identity ', a sense of individuality, his. It is replaced by "We-identity" sense of community and individuality at the same time is lost. Formed as a group virtual identity, subjecting themselves individual personality. As a result, the people that make up the unit lose their sense of responsibility for their actions - even the most deviant. Responsibility - an attribute of "I", it is personal in nature. "We are the image of" providing "amnesty" to any actions, at the time of their implementation, and later came out of the aggregate state of the person is able to feel remorse.

Secondly, increases sharply emotional thinking and impulsive behavior. The unit is always emotional, emotions prevail over reason. We can say that thinking becomes emotionally-shaped. Emotions are different and extreme simplicity; the units are not peculiar subtle experiences. As a consequence, the people that make up the crowd are not capable of complex reasoning.

Thirdly, the unit focuses on the action, giving way to emotions. The activity of the unit requires going, and usually finds it.

Fourthly, to manage the people a leader is needed (in the case of the crowd) or an idol (in the case with the public). The activity of the crowd directed leader (speaker), in their behavior, people who make up the crowd focused on leader personality and ideas which serve as a unifying element. The audience, as there can not exist without an external integrating and controlling element - idol, a source of information. He focuses on the action, giving way to emotions and sometimes become a leader.

So, it can be said, that the behavior of a person in a crowd is very different from his normal behavior. "I-identity 'a sense of individuality, is replaced by "We-identity" sense of community. As a result, the people that make up the unit lose their sense of responsibility for their actions. Emotional thinking and impulsive behavior is increased. The crowd focuses on the action, giving way to emotions.

Conclusion

We have considered the definition of crowd and crowd behavior, classification of crowds and its' features, main forms of mass behavior.

And we conclude that crowd is unorganized or organized gathering of people linked by a common emotional state, the object of attention and purpose.

The crowd is described by a number of parameters and characteristics, such as the number of people gathered, direction and speed, psychological state, and others The size of crowd isn't the main characteristics of it, much more important is the common goal jointers and collective emotional state, goals and desires.

The mass behavior of crowd is the sum of its individual members, and cannot be independently existing and emerging out of nowhere "social aspirations”. More often the behavior of crowd is aggressive, destructive and struggling against something, but not always. It should be noted that behavior depends on the nature and direction are determined by mass consciousness.

Every person changes a lot in a crowd. "I-identity 'a sense of individuality, is replaced by "We-identity" sense of community. Emotional thinking and impulsive behavior is increased.

Literature

1. Cowie A: Modelling of Crowd Dynamics. // [Електронний ресурс] // Режим доступу: http://www.acrc.unisa.edu.au/groups/sysarchsec/crowd.html.

2. Michener HA, Delamater J, Myers D: Collective Behaviors & Social Movements Social Psychology. Belmont USA: Thomas Wadsworth; 2004.

3. Gustave LeBon - The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind Cherokee Publishing Company |1989 . // [Електронний ресурс] // Режим доступу: http://ebookee.org/Gustave-LeBon-The-Crowd-A-Study-of-the-Popular-Mind_998576.html

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