Crimonology How Do People React in a

Crimonology How do people react in a crowd? In the first instance, differences must be made between the various faces of the 'crowd' and operational definitions must be arrived at. As Intro to Sociology defines it: Crowds are large numbers of people in the same space at the same time. (http://freebooks.uvu.edu/SOC1010/index.php/ch19-collective-behaviors.html) The 'crowd' itself is divided into various characteristics. There is, for instance, the Conventional Crowd which a crowd that gathers for a typical event that is more routine in nature.

Then you have the Expressive Crowd that gathers to express an emotion (e.g. Woodstock; the Million Man March; or the 9-11 Memorial Services). And finally you have Solidaristic Crowds that gather as an act of social unity (e.g., Breast Cancer awareness conventions). All of these are non-violent and mostly predicable in their outcome. Other categories of crowds are the emotionally charged so-called 'Acting crowds' that have a goal or objective that they are willing to defend. Many of these develop into riots and strikes (e.g.

he 1991 Los Angeles Riots) and their unpredictable nature can make them a danger to the larger community. The theme of this essay largely turns on the latter category, since it is generally recognized that individuals usually retain their character and mode of action within the less emotionally charge crowd; certainly within the conventional crowd. There are various theories regarding the mode of behavior in a crowd. Some, such as Freud, posit that people' behavior changes in a crowd and they become more restless and less individualistic.

Mob theory, in fact, is born form this which asserts that crowds are the source of volatile conduct where diverse people gang together for a particular cause. Minds merge and each person's enthusiasm becomes increased as a result. On the one hand, you have the Convergence theory that posits that the cause is born beforehand and that people join the crowd in order to put their cause into practice.

The crowd, in other words, enables them to accomplish their objective and it makes them more enthusiastic and entrenched in their mission. The individuals carry the motive with them to the crowd. The crowd possesses like-minded individuals who have similar motivations and the aggrandizements and collection / convergence of these individuals simulates the 'madding crowd' (e.g. Mackay, 1841). This is not so different from LeBon's contagion theory (see later) which posits that the contagiousness of the fervor of the crowd causes people to lose their individual personality and to evade responsibly.

Although this is only partially correct, LeBon's contagion theory merges with the convergence theory in that like-minded people join together and simulate the collective behavior of the crowd. Social psychologists LeBon (1895) and Zimbardo (1969) see the crowd as an instigator of individuation. Stimuli such as mergence into a larger whole, the rush of the environment, the pressure of the crowd, the sensory overload and so forth blur mental input and causes a deindivdualistic individual to appear.

In fact, the deindivdiuation theory lingers with authors such as Festinger pioneering it in the 1950s and with its continuance up to this day with Zimbardo (e.g. 1969) taking the cudgels. The main promoter of this theory was leBon whose book ran into 16 languages and 42 French editions (McPhail, 1991).

According to LeBon: Whoever be the individual that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a crowd puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind that makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation (p57) Festinger argued that crowds cripple cognition and transform behavior.

He writes that crowds render individuals "more free from restraint, less inhibited and able to indulge in forms of behavior which, when alone, they would not indulge in." (1952, 382). Others who propagated the deindividualistic theory included Freud, the sociologists, Park, Blumer and Blumer's students (McPhail, 1991). Allport differed somewhat from the deindividualistic theory. To him, an individual's behavior was no different outside the crowd than it was within it.

The only difference was that the crowd compelled him to conform to their general irrational behavior, and thus the individual, even where he an introvert, meshed into the crowd and changed his behavior to conform to that of the masses. Allport's explanation has been readily accepted by law enforcement personnel, academicians, and politicians (McPhail, (1991) who recognize Alport's explanation in the history of the 20 thcentury.

Similar to these is the Emergent Norm Theory which claims that as crowds form and people interact, new norms develop in the crowd and facilitate certain actions (Intro to sociology). In other words, people who may have behaved in one way outside the crowd suddenly find themselves assuming new forms of conduct within the crowd and, sometimes, these forms of conduct go utterly against their typical behavior.

One thing that is remarkable about all of these theories is that they tend to generalize assuming categorical behavior to all individuals and providing the aspect of 'crowd' with anthropomorphic qualities. Indeed, Schweingruber and Wohlstein (PsyBlog.com) point out that crowd psychology contains several myths some of which are that people in crowds tend to behave irrationally; that indulge in destructive behavior; they become more emotional; and that there is an increase in lack of individuality.

In their book, Seven myths of crowd psychology, Schweingruber and Wohlstein annihilated many of these myths. In their own words: "the actual evidence does not support it. Crowds are not the many-armed destructive monsters of the popular or even fascist imagination." (http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/08/7-myths-of-crowd-psychology.php) Crowds are not as spontaneous as thought; nor are they so suggestible, naive, gullible or easily influenced. Crowds are less irrational that alleged, nor do crowds increase anonymity.

On the contrary, people seek out their own groups and like-minded individuals in the crowd and clan together. Crowds are not always as emotional and destructive as claimed, and finally people, according to Schweingruber and Wohlstein, remain stubbornly individual. According to Schweingruber and Wohlstein, therefore, the personality of the individual remains unchanged by his or her absorption in a crowd. And this.