Categories: Sociology

Crowd behavior

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

 

Page: 1 2

adam kasia

Recent Posts

Porter’s Five Forces of Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation also known as MS is one of the biggest multinational technology-based company in…

2 years ago

Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis of Fast Food Industry

The article is based upon in-depth analysis of Fast Food Industry of Australian Region with…

2 years ago

Apple Inc. – Porter’s Five(5) Forces Analysis

The paper presents detailed overview about the Apple Inc. analysis on the parameters set by…

2 years ago

Marketing Plan – Thomson Holiday Group

The purpose of this research paper is to develop a marketing plan for the Thomson…

2 years ago

Case Study – Jerk Stars Ltd- Sales and Marketing Human Resources Dilemma

1. As applicable to other department managers, a human resources manager invigilates the departments and…

2 years ago

KFC Jamaica – Operation and Services Flow

The purpose of the present article is to formulate a work allocation flow chart of…

2 years ago