Encyclopedia of Sociology

COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

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MATILDA WHITE RILEY

COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

Collective behavior consists of those forms of

social behavior in which the usual conventions

cease to guide social action and people collectively

transcend, bypass, or subvert established institu-

tional patterns and structures. As the name indi-

cates, the behavior is collective rather than indi-

vidual. Unlike small group behavior, it is not

principally coordinated by each-to-each personal

relationships, though such relationships do play

an important part. Unlike organizational behav-

ior, it is not coordinated by formally established

goals, authority, roles, and membership designa-

tions, though emergent leadership and an infor-

mal role structure are important components. The

best known forms of collective behavior are ru-

mor, spontaneous collective responses to crises

such as natural disasters; crowds, collective panics,