Crowd is the temporary gathering of a number of people in one place for a single goal. The members of crowd rarely know each other. Most forms of crowd behavior are unstructured in which members do not follow traditions, rules and regulations. Crowd behavior sometimes becomes rude, impulsive and violent. The people do not gather collectively in a place through a pre-planned pattern because crowed behavior appears spontaneously. If we have a glance over our surroundings, we may find lot of crowd behavior. People use to surround the spots where an unusual happens. For example, a nasty road accident forms a crowd, the act of shopping of a national hero forms a crowd and the big screen with a football match forms a crowd in a roadside etc.
Theories about crowd behavior
There are two types of theories about crowd behavior i-e convergence theory and emergent norm theory.
Convergence Theory
In the convergence theory, it is mentioned that the crowd behavior arises from the collection of people for uniform goals. The people of crowd share the same likes, needs, impulses and purposes etc. The people attending a crowd share number of common characteristics which may differ from the other crowd. For example the crowd of rock festivals is different from the crowd which is protesting against the government. These two forms of crowd may differ from each other in the shape of aggression, anger and emotions etc.
Emergent Norm Theory
According to the emergent theory, crowd takes action on the basis of some norms of the crowd. The members of the crowd participate in the activities like burning, looting, shouting and abusing etc. After the failure of removal of grievances, a norm emerges which justifies the limitations of the crowd behavior. It is because of a norm that a calm and cool crowd comes into action and also enters into the terrifying moods.
Limitations of crowd behavior
There are at least four considerations with which the crowd behavior can be limited.
1. Emotional needs of the members
2. The mores of the members
3. The leadership of crowd
4. The external control over the crowd
1. Emotional needs of members
The emotional needs, sentiments and prejudices of the members are expressed by the crowd behavior. A person may do those things in a crowd which can not be done by him/her lonely. Crowd allows its members to express impulses, hostilities, and aggressions etc. For example a person restrains the impulses if he/she likes to break the things. Contrary to this, a person is not bound to restrain the impulses while acting in a crowd. Hence, it is proved that crowd behavior fulfills the emotional needs of the members.
2. Mores of members
The members are bound to act within the limits of their mores. People do not violate the mores in a crowd. A crowd can kill a person but can not eat the flesh of the person because it is against the mores of the members.
3. Crowd Leadership