Crowd Behaviour

- Many examples throughout history 

- Clash's between groups/communities 

- Often with police and violent and somettimes deadly

- Tabloids frequently refer to the 'mob mentality'

- Alternatively explained as 'a few thugs/hooligans leading others astray'

"By the mere fact that he forms part of an organised crowd, a man decends several rungs on the ladder of civilisation. Isolated, he may be cultivated individual, in a crowd he is a barbarian... a creature acting by instinct"

- For Le Bon, the crowd is something to fear, something that needs to be controlled

- Power of the crowd should be used for the state rather than against it.

- Hitler, Mussolini and Geobbles were fans of Le Bon

- Loss of consious rationality when immersed in the crowd and so usually supressed primitive instincts are released. Crowd behaviour is not controlled behaviour like in everyday life.

- Barbaric behaviour - more basic level of functioning.

The Group Mind:

- The crowd feels united, they feel part of a large unit and so then feel powerful

- Feel anonymous as part of the crowd and so loose their sense of responsibility.

- Because of 'group mind' folllow others easily abandon own personal beliefs and automatically follow others.

- the notion of the 'group mind' has been rejected in psychology - 'unscientific'

- Anonymity element was very influential

- As was the idea that crowds behaviour is uncontrolled behaviour

- Inputs: Anonymity, defused responsibility, size of the group

- Leads to: a loss of identity = the state of deindividuation

- Output behaviour: Impulsive irrational and regressive - prone to violence 

- Procedure very similar to Milgram's Obedience studies. Said to be a learning experiment & ppts are required to administer mild electric shocks 

- 2 conditions:

         - De-individuated: given a shapeless hooded coat which covered head

         - Person Idenity Salient: own clothes and name tags 

- The duration of the shocks administered by the de-individuation ppts was double the length of those in the individuated condition

- Watson (1973) correlation between war paint and use of torture

- Jaffe & Yinon (1979), repeated measures but compared groups of 3 with individuals; found the groups administered more intense shocks.

- Zimbardo carried out a variation looking at Belgium soldiers vs. the classic de-individuation outfit 

- He found the reverse pattern of results, the de-individuated ppts shocked less

- He argued since the soldiers were in uniform, they were already de-individuated.

- The hooded outfits served to re-individuate them, thus reducing their aggression

- Deiner (1979) created group cohesion by getting ppts. to adopt a group name, and to sing and dance together

- showed more unhibited behaviour than those made to feel self-aware

- They played with mud, finger painted eith their noses, sucked liquids from baby bottles 

- Suggests suggestibility not aggression

- Verson of Zimbardo's study, conditions of individuation and de-individuation

- Additionally compared those wearing nurses outfits with those in Ku Klux Klan outfits 

- Found for those in nurses outfits, shock level decreased when de-individuated 

- For those in the KKK condition, generally higher rates, but no significant increase when de-individuated 

- St Paul's - rough area of Bristol 

- Increaing tension in urban areas 

- Riots in Brixton, Toxteth & St. Paul's 

- High unemployment

- Stop & search policy (percieived as legitimising racist police harrassment of black people)

- Reported as 'Race riots'

- Violence was not random but directed at specific targets 

- Crowds members knew one another, if not well then at least by sight 

- Violence was geographically contained 

- Crowd as a group- felt strong ties with others, & felt proud to be members of that community - United

- The police also treated the crowd as a group

Damage done

- 21 Police cars damage

- 22 PC's injured 

- 27 PC's with minor injuries 

- 4/16 locally owned shops damaged 

- 8/8 outside owned shops damaged

- Behaviour directed at specific targets

- Previous work on crowd behaviour takes it out of context.

- It is always INTERGROUP behaviour, police also constitute a group

- In failing to appreciate this is unsurprising that behaviour appears difficult to explain, & uncontrolled, random, mad

- Crowd members were NOT anonymous, there is a change rather than a loss of identity, from personal to social

- Once social identity is salient, we take on the rules of behaviour of the group - 'social norms'

- Behaviour changes because the rules of behaviour change 

- This explains why the Police don't join in, the rules for the group is different

- Behaviour was controlled, aimed at specific targets . & there were limits with regard to what was acceptable

- Why didn't the police join in? They were de-individuated by wearing their uniform and even more likely to go crazy

- Crowd was not anonymous 

- Johnson & Downing's findings, the social norms for nurses is pro-social, caring behaviour

- Zimbardo's study on soldiers, a military uniform would heighten social identity as a soldier, the social norms for whom include obedience and aggression

Includes Social Identity Theory (SIT) & Self-catergorisation Theory

- We must look at intergroup context to understand social behaviour 

- We need analysis at the group level, not just social identities 

- Social identities, shared ingroup members

- Influence passes between ingroup members only

- Share group norms

- Potential for conflict with outgroup

- Reicher (1996), reports on 'The Battle of Westminster' - a student demo in 1988- student grants abolished

- Confusion over route for the march, this is changed by the police when. numbers of demonstrators become clear

- Students want to cross the bridge 

- Police want to block them 

- Violence

- Culminates in mounted police charging the crowd

Legitimacy & Democracy:

- Police argue they are protecting democracy by protecting parliament. The protestors behaviour is not legitimate, they are not taking the agreed route

Interviews with crowd members:

- They are using the democratic right to protest and voice dissent. The police's behaviour is not legitimate - their use of force.

- Crowds will become violent when outgroup behaviour seen as illigeitmate & physical opposition to its deemed effective 

- Need to understand the context of the conflict - it will shape behaviour adopted ad normative

- Limits of those who get involved will depend on those who percieve illegitimate - indiscriminate treatment will unite a crowd

- Harsh blanket treatment will escalate the problem - in attacking a group as a whole, you give them a shared sense of fate, a common shared identity

- Scott, Hutchinson & Dury (2001)- international football 'hooligans abroad'

- Conducted surveys and interviews on 121 supporters 

- Found that violence was more accepted norm amongst English supporters, the Scottish supporters norm was non-violence

- Understanding this background explains why violent behaviour would spread to normally peaceful supporters of England 

- It is a group level normative behaviour

- Reicher & Scott have argued for an Elaborated Social Identity Model to explain crowds

- A key theme to add to those of the original Social Identity approach included the indiscriminate treatment of the crowd will unite them

- If treatment is percieved as illegitimate, they are likely to unite action against the outgroup