1. Collective Behavior, Social
Movements, and Social Change

2. Chapter Outline
 Collective Behavior
 Social Movements
 Social Movement Theories
 Social Change in the Future

3. Collective Behavior
 Collective behavior is voluntary activity
engaged in by a large number of people
and typically violates dominant-group
norms and values.
 Social change is the alteration,
modification, or transformation of public
policy, culture, or social institutions over
time; such change is usually brought
about by collective behavior.

4. Factors That Contribute to
Collective Behavior
1. Structural factors that increase the
chances of people responding in a
particular way.
2. Timing.
3. Breakdown in social control
mechanisms and corresponding feeling
of normlessness.

5. Types of Crowd Behavior
 Casual crowds - people who happen to be in
the same place at the same time.
 Conventional crowds - people who come
together for a scheduled event and share a
common focus.
 Protest crowds - crowds that engage in
activities intended to achieve political goals.

6. Types of Crowd Behavior
 Expressive crowds - people releasing
emotions with others who experience
similar emotions.
 Acting crowds - collectivities so intensely
focused that they may erupt into violent
behavior.

7. Expressive and Acting
Crowds
 A mob is a highly emotional crowd whose
members engage in, or are ready to engage in,
violence against a person, a category of
people, or physical property.
 A riot is violent crowd behavior fueled by deep-seated
emotions but not directed at one target.
 A panic is a form of crowd behavior that occurs
when a large number of people react to a real
or perceived threat with strong emotions and
self destructive behavior.

8. Protest Crowds
 Protest crowds engage in activities intended to
achieve specific political goals.
 Examples: sit-ins, marches, boycotts,
blockades, and strikes.
 Some protests take the form of civil
disobedience - nonviolent action that seeks to
change a policy or law by refusing to comply
with it.

9. Explanations of Crowd
Behavior
 Contagion Theory - People are more
likely to engage in antisocial behavior in a
crowd because they are anonymous and
feel invulnerable.
 Social unrest and circular reaction -
the discontent of one person is
communicated to another who reflects it
back to the first person.

10. Explanations of Crowd
Behavior
 Convergence theory - focuses on the
shared emotions, goals, and beliefs
people bring to crowd behavior.
 Emergent norm theory - crowds
develop their own definition of the
situation and establish norms for behavior
that fits the occasion.

11. Mass Behavior
 Mass behavior is collective behavior that takes
place when people (who often are
geographically separated from one another)
respond to the same event in much the same
way.
 The most frequent types of mass behavior are
rumors, gossip, mass hysteria, public opinion,
fashions, and fads.

12. Mass Behavior
 Rumors are unsubstantiated reports on an
issue or subject.
 Gossip refers to rumors about the personal
lives of individuals.
 A fad is a temporary but widely copied activity
enthusiastically followed by large numbers of
people.

13. Mass Behavior
 Fashion is defined as a currently valued style
of behavior, thinking, or appearance.
 Public opinion consists of the attitudes and
beliefs communicated by ordinary citizens to
decision makers.
 Propaganda—information provided by
individuals or groups that have a vested interest
in furthering their own cause or damaging an
opposing one.

14. Social Movement Theories
Relative
Deprivation
People compare achievements, become
discontent and join social movements to
get their “fair share”.
Resource
Mobilization
People participate in social movements
when the movement has access to key
resources.

15. Social Movement Theories
New Social
Movement
Focus on sources of social
movements, including politics,
ideology, and culture.
Social Construction
Theory:
Frame Analysis
Used to determine how people assign
meaning to activities and processes in
social movements.

16. Social Movement Theories
New Social
Movement
The focus is on sources of social
movements, including politics,
ideology, and culture. Race,
class, gender, sexuality, and
other sources of identity are also
factors in movements such as
ecofeminism and environmental
justice.

17. Example,
Emerging Social Movement
•WALL STREET JOURNAL OCTOBER 5, 2009
FreedomWorks Harnesses Growing Activism on the Right
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
WASHINGTON -- When throngs of conservative protesters descended on the capital last month, former House Majority
Leader Dick Armey led the crowd in a pro-market chant. "Freedom works!" he yelled. "Freedom works!"
It wasn't just a rallying cry. It was also a plug for Mr. Armey's small-government advocacy group, FreedomWorks, which the
Texas Republican hopes will emerge from a summer of political turmoil as the right's answer to such liberal activist groups as
MoveOn.org.
Little-known outside the Beltway, FreedomWorks is trying to achieve a delicate balance, tapping into an emotional
conservative uprising -- which gained force during a series of raucous health-care town-hall meetings this summer -- without
appearing to co-opt it.
"People are looking for a home; they don't have a home in the Republican Party and they don't have a home in the Democratic
Party," says Brendan Steinhauser, the group's director of federal and state campaigns.
The FreedomWorks strategy has been to lend financial clout and organizational skills to those running tea-party and town-hall
demonstrations and others angry about Democratic health-care proposals, environmental bills and deficit spending. At the
same time, it has been using those events to build its own membership rolls to more than 400,000 nationwide, according to the
group.
MoveOn.org claims more than five million online members. Organizing for America, an offshoot of President Barack Obama's
campaign, boasts an email list 13 million names long.
"It's a loose-knit group of people, the tea-party patriots, and they don't know each other well," says Mr. Armey, who left the
House in 2003. "Then there are grassroots groups like our own. I think we are the best out there. People are going to find us."
Mr. Armey chairs both FreedomWorks Inc. and its foundation, with $7 million in combined revenue last year, according to tax
filings. The group, which has fewer than 20 paid staffers, declines to identify its major donors. Steve Forbes, the former
presidential candidate and president and CEO of publisher Forbes Inc., is on the board of FreedomWorks Foundation.

18. Since its creation in 2004, FreedomWorks has championed conservative causes, from Social Security
privatization to telecommunications deregulation. It lent its backing to the controversial payday-lending and
tobacco industries.
In February, when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli delivered an on-air angry tirade over government bailouts of
troubled homeowners and announced a protest tea party, FreedomWorks staffers put together an "I am with
Rick" Web site.
FreedomWorks linked together would-be tea-party protesters and provided tips on everything from sound
systems to news releases. Perhaps more importantly, FreedomWorks extended its liability-insurance policy to
cover tea parties around the country, turning local events into FreedomWorks-branded ones, spokesman Adam
Brandon says.
"I'm brand new at this game," says Mary Rakovich, a former automotive engineer who turned to FreedomWorks
to help put together an event in Cape Coral, Fla.
The Sept. 12 Washington protest was set in motion earlier in 2009 when FreedomWorks officials applied for a
march permit, choosing the date because it followed Congress's return from recess, according to Mr. Brandon.
Glenn Beck, the Fox News television commentator, seized on the date -- the day after the anniversary of the
Sept. 11 attacks -- as a symbol of what he called national unity and began promoting 9/12 demonstrations. (Fox
is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.)
The growing movement has turned off some high-profile conservative voices, such as former George W. Bush
speechwriter David Frum, who worry that raucous displays and occasionally extreme language risk alienating
moderates.
And even as they ride the conservative wave, FreedomWorks officials worry about being seen as aspiring to
control it. The movement has so far been reluctant to embrace a leader; many protesters seem deeply suspicious
of those in authority.
"We're all leaders," says Maryann Clements, a Tallahassee, Fla., office worker who rode a bus to Washington for
last month's demonstrations.
—Naftali Bendavid contributed to this article.

19. Value-Added Theory
 Conditions required for social
movements to develop:
1. People are aware of a problem and
engage in collective action.
2. Society cannot meet expectations for
taking care of the problem.
3. Spread of a belief of possible
solutions to the problem.

20. Value-Added Theory
4. Events reinforce the beliefs.
5. Mobilization of participants for action.
6. Society allows the movement to take
action.

21. Types of Social Movements
 Reform movements seek to improve society by
changing an aspect of the social structure.
 Revolutionary movements seek to bring about
a total change in society.
 Religious movements seek to produce radical
change in individuals and typically are based on
spiritual or supernatural belief systems.

22. Types of Social Movements
 Alternative movements seek limited
change in some aspect of people's
behavior.
 Resistance movements seek to prevent
or undo change that has already
occurred.

23. Stages in Social Movements
 Preliminary stage - people begin to
become aware of a threatening problem.
 Coalescence stage - people begin to
organize and start making the threat
known to the public.
 Institutionalization stage -
organizational structure develops.

24. The Earth’s Supply of Potable
Water