Crowds
A crowd is defined as “a temporary collection of people who share an immediate common interest”. When gathering into crowds, individuals often behave relating to their motives, or the motives of those around them. In order to understand crowd behavior, sociologists have broken crowds into types, as well as breaking them down by their behavior. These types and behaviors are listed below.
Casual Crowd
A casual crowd develops and fades quickly, with the members not displaying intense emotion, or organization. An example of this type of crowd would be individuals gathering to see the aftermath of an accident
Conventional Crowd
A conventional crowd is a crowd that develops for a specific purpose, but obeys by the expected rules. For example, a crowd viewing a musical on the stage would be a conventional crowd as they have gathered for a specific purpose, but are behaving respectfully.
Expressive Crowd
An expressive crowd is a crowd that gathers for a short term, with no long term purpose in mind. These crowds often have no goal other than to release emotion in the mood of the moment. For example, hysterical fans at a concert fall into this type of crowd.
Acting Crowd
An acting crowd is a crowd which develops in order to take action against a specific target. This type of crowd is the most emotional and radical, as they have a specific goal in mind and behave accordingly. For example, a group of protestors would exhibit behaviors of an acting crowd.
Behaviors within Crowds
Contagion theory
The contagion norm theory states that “members of crowds stimulate each other to higher and higher levels of emotion and irrational behavior”. According with this theory, although individuals gather in a crowd with their own purpose and thoughts, they soon find themselves losing this individuality as they begin to go along with the crowd’s behavior and act accordingly. Therefore, the behavior in a crowd is “contagious” as it spreads through individuals, causing them to behave as a whole rather than individual parts.
Emergent Norm Theory
The emergent norm theory states that “norms develop to guide crowd behavior”. This theory indicates that the norms which guide every day behavior carry over to the behavior exhibited by individuals in crowds. Therefore, even in crowds, rules “emerge” which govern the way that each individual will respond to situation while in the crowd. In this theory, conformity may occur, but the crowd does not act as a whole, but rather as individuals behaving under separate norms.
Convergence Theory
The convergence theory states that “crowds are formed by people who deliberately congregate with like-minded others”. Therefore, under this theory, all crowds develop due to a similar desire within the participants. In this case, the individuals are forming a crowd because they want to accomplish the same goal, or share the same experience with those who are similar to themselves.