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RCC SOC 1 - Study References

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CHAPTER 17 SUMMARYCollective behavior is the spontaneous and unstructured behavior of a large number of people who may violate traditional or conventional norms and values. Collective behavior is a broad term that encompasses a wide range of group phenomena, including riots, fads, fashion, panic, rumors, responses todisaster, and social movements. It is an act and varies in its degree of spontaneity and structure. The example of Cindy Sheehan shows how a group such as Gold Star families for Peace emerged from her son dying in the Gulf War in 2004. Perspectives on collective behavior include structural strain theory. This perspective looks at determinantsof collective behavior, all of them at the macro level, that encourage or discourage collective behavior. Each condition leads to the new one. First is the structural conduciveness or conditions that allow a collective behavior to occur. Next, structural strain occurs when the system does not respond to the condition. Cindy Sheehan began to for her group due to the lack of response from the government over her son’s death. Next is the growth and spread of a generalized belief. Others experienced the same problems, i.e. their children were dying for nothing. Precipitating factors such as the anti-war tent outside the president’s ranch and media attention spurred on anti-war protests. Mobilizing people for action occurred when leaders emerged who encouraged agitation, hostility, or changing the status quo. Sheehan was the leader in agitating for peace in Iraq, but anti-war groups supported her efforts through television ads. Finally social control occurs where opposing groups may tryto prevent, interrupt, deflect, or repress “malcontents” and other “rabble rousers.” In Sheehan’s case, the administration, conservative television stations, and right-wing political commentators dismissed Sheehanas a “crackpot” and described her protests as “treasonous.” Critics of the perspective point out that it does not explain all forms of collective behavior. Also the events of collective action do not always adhere to the sequence of the theory. A third criticism is that the determinants don’t always spark collective behavior.Varieties of collective behavior include rumors, gossip, and urban legends. Rumor is unfounded information spread among people in relatively rapid fashion. Gossip is the act of spreading news, especially rumors, about other people’s personal lives. Another form of rumor is urban legends or stories—funny, horrifying, or just odd—that supposedly happened to people. Another form of collective behavior is a panic or a collective flight from a real or perceived danger in an uncooperative and often irrational way. Panic is similar to mass hysteria, an intense, fearful, and anxious reaction to a real or imagined threat by large numbers of people. Fashions, fads, and crazes are three more kinds of collective behavior that encompass broad geographical areas and involve large numbers of people. Fashion is a temporary standard of appearance, thinking, or behavior that enjoys widespread acceptance within a society. Compared with fashions, a fad is a form of collective behavior that spreads rapidly and enthusiastically, but lasts only a short time. Some fads are crazes, forms of collective behavior that become all-consuming passions for a short period of time. The Beanie Babies fad during the late 1990s turned into a craze. A disaster is an unplanned and unwanted occurrence that causes widespread damage, destruction, distress, and loss. A public is a collection of people, not necessarily in direct contact with each other, who are interested in aparticular issue. Public opinion is how people feel about a particular issue. It encompasses verbalization about a controversial matter concerning the public. Public opinion can be swayed through propaganda, the presentation of information deliberately designed to influence the opinions or actions of individuals orgroups. A crowd is a temporary collection of people who are in one another’s immediate vicinity and whoshare a common interest. Crowds are causal (have little in common), conventional (a group that assembles for a specific purpose and follows conventional norms), expressive (people who exhibit strong 1emotions toward some common object, or acting (one that is motivated and has a single minded purpose). A protest crowd is one assembled to achieve a specific goal.A mob is a highly emotional and disorderly crowd that uses force or violence against a specific target. They often arise in situations where people demand radical societal changes, like removing corrupt government officials. Compared with mobs, riots usually last longer. A riot is a violent crowd that directs its hostility at a wide and shifting range of targets. Unlike mobs that usually have a specific target, rioters rarely have a common purpose. Social movements are a large group of people who are organized to promote or resist some social changein society. Examples of social movements include groups that focus on religion, civil rights, the disabled, crime victims, gun control, and drunk driving, to name just a few. Social movements are organized, goal-oriented, deliberate, structured, and can have a lasting impact on a society. Social movements can be alternative (focused and want to change some people’s attitudes or behavior in some way), reformative want to change everyone, but only on a particular topic or issue), redemptive (want to create dramatic change in some people’s lives), reformative (want to change society in some specific way), resistance (want to preserve the status quo by blocking change, and revolutionary (want to completely destroy a social order and replace it with a new one. According to mass society theory social movements emerge due to people feeling powerless, insignificant, and isolated in modern mass society. Critics point out the theory does not explain why somepeople are from privileged backgrounds but still for movements. Relative deprivation is a gap between what people have and what they think they should have compared with others in a society. Critics of this perspective claim that there is always a certain amount of relative deprivation but that does not lead people to create a social movement. Resource Mobilization Theory postulates that a social movement will succeed if it can manage organization and leadership to advance its cause. A major criticism is


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RCC SOC 1 - Study References

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