1. Social Inequality & Change

2. Collective behavior
Definition: activity involving a large number of people; often spontaneous, sometimes controversial
Collectivity: lg. # of people whose activity occurs in the absence of well-defined & conventional norms (examples: crowds, riots, public opinion, rumors, fashion)—can be localized or dispersed

3. RIOT

4. CROWD

6. Localized collective behavior
Crowd: temporary gathering of people who share a common focus & influence each other
Mob: highly emotional crowd that pursues a violent or destructive goal
Riot: social eruption that’s highly emotional, violent & undirected
Flash mobs (result of modern technology)

7. MOB

8. FLASH MOB
Sabadell
(closing time)

9. Dispersed collective behavior
Rumor: unsubstantiated information people spread informally, often by word of mouth
Gossip: rumor about people’s personal affairs
Public opinion: widespread attitudes about controversial issues
Propaganda: information presented with the intention of shaping public opinion

10. Panic: form of localized collective behavior by which people react to a threat or other stimulus with irrational, frantic & often self-destructive behavior
Mass hysteria (moral panic): form of dispersed collective behavior by which people react to a real or imagined event with irrational and even frantic fear
Fashion: social pattern favored by lg. # of ppl
Fad: unconventional social pattern people embrace briefly but enthusiastically

13. Social Movements & Change
Defined: transformation of culture & social institutions over time
Exist to encourage or resist change
Examples: civil rights movement, child labor laws, women’s rights, environmental laws, gay rights (same-sex marriage), marijuana legalization movement
Result of technology improvements: TV, cable, satellite, cell phones, social networks
Unites people like never before

14. Social Change
Causes: inventions/technology, discoveries, diffusion (spread of info/cultures); conflict, ideas (religion), demographics (women, child birth rates, migration)
Modernity: social patterns resulting from industrialization (less small communities, more personal choices, more diversity, oriented towards the future more than the past)

15. Modernity
Mass society: society in which prosperity & bureaucracy have eroded traditional social ties
Class society (Marx): capitalist society with pronounced social stratification
Postmodernity: social patterns characteristics of postindustrial societies

16. Race: category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that society considers important (black, white, Hispanic, Asian)
Ethnicity: shared cultural heritage (Christian Xmas)
Prejudice: rigid & unfair generalization about a category of people (all whites/blacks…)
Racism: the belief that one racial category is innately superior to another (Asians are smarter.)
Discrimination: treating various categories of people unequally (Preferring an Asian doctor because they’re “smarter.”)
Stereotype: an exaggerated description applied to every person in some category (black male=thug)