What Is Collective Behaviour with Examples? (Tips for Students)

In this article, we have discussed collective behaviour, examples, and characteristics of collective behaviour.

Collective behaviour defines the action and behaviour of people within a large group. It’s the activities of people in crowds, crazes, fads, fashions, publics, and cults, with a common interest to draw public attention or accomplish a goal.

The study of collective behaviour varies from that of individual behaviour, as the former emphasizes group. But we often see the motivation and ideas of the individuals in these large groups being carried out.

The individuals in these groupings often share a common motive and collectively plan to take action.

Stay with us as we discuss collective behaviour, including the characteristics of collective behaviour and examples.

What Is Collective Behaviour?

Collective behaviour defines the behaviour and action of people who are part of a larger group. According to ifiogue.com, collective behaviour defines the behaviour that occurs when social conventions are suspended, making people collectively establish new norms of behaviour due to an emerging situation.

Generally, people tend to act collectively in some situations. This usually happens when urgent situations occur and people are quick to react or respond.

We all can attest to the idea of “when we lead, the others will follow”. Even in nature, animals act collectively to survive in the wild.

Collective behaviour refers to the activities or actions of people in large groupings, with examples including revolutions, crazes, fads, panics, riots, etc.

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What Are the Characteristics of Collective Behaviour?

It’s a bit difficult to predict human behaviour, especially when it involves emotions. It only takes saying a few important and valuable words to convince others.

Those who are usually involved in mass protests were influenced by the crowd. Being part of a large crowd involves taking responsibility for every act.

According to studymaster.co.uk, French polymath Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon argued that suggestibility, contagion, and anonymity are the characteristics of groupings that result in collective behaviour.

Deindividuation defines the processes that occur a within group, where some individuals become anonymous. The term deindividuation was created by American social psychologist, Leon Festinger.

Examples of Collective Behaviours

According to openstax.org, examples of collective behaviours include flash mobs, a population of teens adopting a new trend, or a group of travellers heading home from a journey.

Collective behaviour also defines the action of any group which is not accepted or mandated by institutions. There are several examples of collective behaviour and they include, the public, mass, and crowd.

According to Turner and Killian, there are four types of crowds. It includes casual crowds which is made up of people who are in the same location at the same time but are not interacting in any way.

Next, we have conventional crowds. This is usually made up of people who attend events that occur regularly, for example, attending a religious service.

Express crowds define people who come together to express emotions, especially at weddings, anniversaries, or funerals.

Acting crowd refers to people who are involved in mass movements such as riots or protests.

Let’s talk about these examples of collective behaviour more.

Crowds

A crowd consist of a large number of people who are gathered for a specific purpose. The four types of crowds mentioned above were developed by American sociologist Herbert Blumer.

However, a fifth type of crowd has also been developed. Protest crowds are the fifth type of crowd.

Casual Crowd

A casual crowd is made up of people who are in the same location at the same time but are not interacting in any way. A casual crowd does not have a common identity nor does it have a long-term purpose.

A simple example of a casual crowd is a group of people waiting for the red light before they cross the street. This type of crowd consists of people who have no long-term purpose or share a common bond.

It happens that there are just together in the same place at the same time. The people in this crowd just found themselves in the same place and they do not share a common interest.

To shed more light on the subject, take the Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo as an example. Each day, over a thousand pedestrians use the Shibuya Crossing. That is a perfect example of a casual crowd.

The intersection is often referred to as “the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world” according to Wikipedia.

With hundreds of people waiting to cross use the intersection, they have a common goal which is only temporary, considering they all move in separate directions after crossing the street.

American sociologist Erich Goode in one of his works describes members of a casual crowd as having little in common except for their physical location at that time.

The American sociologist believes that casual crowds do not act out collectively.

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Conventional Crowd

Conventional crowds are usually made up of people who attend events that occur regularly, for example, attending a religious service. It also describes a group of people attending a musical concert, a play, or a lecture.

Erich Goode also believes that conventional crowds are different and do not act out collective behaviour.

We will still discuss more examples of collective behaviour.

Expressive Crowd

Expressive crowds define people who come together to express emotions, especially at weddings, anniversaries, or funerals. Those who gather at events such as political rallies are also described as expressive crowds.

The audience in conventional crowds wants to watch a performance or listen to a lecture, while the audience in expressive crowds wants to do a little bit more than being a spectator.

Although the audience in an expressive crowd wants to be just like a spectator, they become part of the crowd and adopt the crowd’s behaviour to cheer, clap and scream, according to pressbooks.howardcc.edu.

The audience in a conventional crowd sometimes acts like those in expressive crowds. For example, when the crowd at a movie theatre start shouting because of a malfunction in the film projector, the crowd becomes an expressive crowd.

The people in a Convectional crowd can sometimes act like those in expressive crowds. They share similar energy and emotion when it comes to showing excitement.

The audience in an expressive crowd shows emotional expression and that describes the collective behaviour of the individuals in the crowd.

Acting Crowd

Acting crowd refers to people who engage in mass movements such as riots or protests.

While expressive crowds show emotional expression, an action crowd express violent and destructive behaviour. A common occurrence that is usually associated with protests is looting.

An angry mob with intentions to commit violence is a clear example of an acting crowd.

Throughout history, we have had several violent protests in cities with people looting and destroying both public and private property. The Detroit riot during the late 1960s is a perfect example.

During the riot, violent acts were committed with the destruction and looting of items. Before the Detroit riot in the late 1960s, angry mobs in the southern states of the U.S. were lynching offenders.

Thousands of people, especially African-American were lynched by angry mobs before and after the Civil War. This was very common in southern states across the U.S.

Some offenders were never given the opportunity to stand trial for their crimes. The angry mob hanged and murdered thousands of offenders, with African-Americans making up the larger number.

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Protest Crowd

We have discussed collective behaviour, examples, and characteristics of collective behaviour.

Protest crowds are one of the types of crowds where the audience expresses a different kind of emotion. Conventional crowds and expressive crowd share and express similar emotions.

On the other hand, acting crowds and protest crowds consist of people with different emotions.

A protest crowd refers to a collection of individuals with a common goal to protest against a political or cultural notion. During protests, the crowd will gather with their placard and march some distance.

They make demands on pressing issues that require urgent attention. An example of a protest crowd describes a large crowd that partakes in a demonstration, rally, or march.

Social Movement

A social movement refers to an organized and structured effort made by a large number of people with the intention to bring about political, social, cultural, or economic change.

Riots

A riot refers to a violent and destructive act carried out by a group of people. This usually leads to violent acts against other people and the destruction of public and private property.

We talked about the Detroit riot during the late 1960s. It was one of the most violent riots in the history of the United States, with 16 people killed and over 490 injured.

Around the world, there have been several violent riots in recent times. Whenever there is a riot, we can hardly predict human behaviour as they tend to become more violent and angry.

The normal occurrences that happened during a riot are looting, and destruction of property both public and private. During this unrest, we see people burn and destroy the community they live in.

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Fads and Crazes

Fads and crazes complete the second category of perceptions which are considered as collective behaviour. A fad is an activity or a popular product for a short term and a craze is referred to as a temporary activity which attracts the eagerness of a small group of individuals as stated by Erich Goode in one of his works.

Rumours, Mass Hysteria and Moral Panic

We have discussed examples of collective behaviours and characteristics of collective behaviour. The types of examples discussed include crowds and riots which involve people physically interacting with others.

The people we previously discussed share a common goal and beliefs which sociologists describe as collective behaviours.

Rumours

A rumour refers to an unreliable story share among a group of people and usually moves from one person to another person. Sometimes, a rumour may just be true but they are often false stories.

Mass Hysteria

Mass hysteria usually occurs when a potentially destructive event leads to a highly emotional fear among the public. These emotional fears are sometimes accompanied by mass movements, panic or unnecessary plans to escape from imminent danger.

Moral Panic

Moral panic shares a similarity with mass hysteria. It refers to widespread concern about a perceived threat which usually turns out to be false, leaving the public in great panic.

People show their concern about moral problems involving behaviours like sexual activity and drug use. Just so you know, people often take legal action or try to handle this moral problem which has become a major concern over time.

Conclusion

Collective behaviour defines the activity and actions of individuals within a group but it doesn’t define the actions of a particular individual.

We have explained the different types of crowds which include casual crowds, conventional crowds, expressive crowds, acting crowds, and protest crowds.

We hope this article on collective behaviour with examples and characteristics of collective behaviour was helpful.