1. WarmUp: Journal Entry
Respond to the following scenario in your journals. Please be detailed in your response.
You are sitting in a movie theater watching a film & the film breaks.
How does the audience respond?
Why do they respond that way?

2. Collective Behavior & Social Movements
Chapter 17.1
Collective Behavior &
Social Movements

3. Objectives
Contrast the various types of collectivities & analyze the explanations for collective behavior that have been proposed.
Identify the preconditions necessary for collective behavior to occur & explain how they build on one another.

4. Collective Behavior
the relatively spontaneous social behavior that occurs when people try to develop common solutions to unclear situations

5. Characteristics of Collectives
limited interaction
unclear norms
limited unity
group that share these characteristics known as a collectivity

6. Types of Collective Behavior
Crowds Mobs
Riots Panics
Mass Hysteria Fashions
Fads Rumors
Urban Legends Public Opinion

7. Crowds
temporary gathering of people who are in close enough proximity to interact

8. Mobs
an emotionally charged collectivity whose members are united by a specific destructive or violent goal

9. Riots
collection of people who erupt into generalized destructive behavior, resulting in social disorder
less unified & focused than mobs
London Graffiti Riot

10. Panics
spontaneous & uncoordinated group action to escape some perceived threat

11. Mass Hysteria
unfounded anxiety shared by people who can be scattered over a large geographic area

12. Fashions
enthusiastic attachments among large numbers of people for particular styles of appearance or behavior

13. Fads
an unconventional object, action, or idea that a large number of people are attached to for a very short period of time

14. Rumors
unverified pieces of information that spread rapidly from one person to another

15. Urban Legends
stories that teach a lesson & seem realistic but are untrue
Urban Legends Decoded: The Hook

16. Public Opinion
collection of different attitudes that members of the public have about a particular issue

17. Explaining Collective Behavior
Contagion Theory
Emergent-Norm Theory
Value-Added Theory

18. Contagion Theory developed by Gustave LeBon
1st systematic theory of collective behavior
3 factors give crowds power over individuals
numbers create anonymity of individual members
spread of emotion like epidemic
members rapidly enter state of suggestibility

19. Emergent-Norm Theory developed by Ralph Turner & Lewis Killian
people in a crowd often faced with a situation in which traditional norms do not apply
no clear standards of behavior
new norms gradually emerge

20. Value-Added Theory proposed by Neil Smelser
attempted to predict if collective behavior would occur & the direction it might take
taken from economic theory of the production process
6 basic preconditions for social behavior:
1) structural conduciveness
2) structural strain
3) growth & spread of generalized belief
4) precipitation factors
5) mobilization for action
6) social control

21. CHAPTER 17: CLASSWORK Page 448: #2-3 Page 455: #2-3
Page 458: #1-10 Identifying People & Ideas
Page 458: #1-7 Understanding Main Ideas
Page 459: #1-4 Building Social Studies Skills

22. Group Activity: Collective Behavior Posters
In groups of 3, create a poster for 1 of the previously discussed types of social behavior.
Be sure to include relevant facts, examples & illustrations to support your definitions.