COLLECTIVE BEHAVIORcrazes, fads, fashions, publics (participants in form-
ing public opinion), cults, followings; and reform
and revolutionary movements. Social movements
are sometimes treated as forms of collective behav-
ior, but are often viewed as a different order of
phenomena because of the degree of organization
necessary to sustain social action. This essay will
include only those social movement theories that
also have relevance for the more elementary forms
of collective behavior.
Theories of collective behavior can be classi-
fied broadly as focusing on the behavior itself
(microlevel) or on the larger social and cultural
settings within which the behavior occurs (macrolevel
or structural). An adequate theory at the microlevel
must answer three questions, namely: How is it
that people come to transcend, bypass, or subvert
institutional patterns and structures in their activi-
ty; how do people come to translate their attitudes
into significant overt action; and how do people
come to act collectively rather than singly? Struc-
tural theories identify the processes and condi-
tions in culture and social structure that are con-
ducive to the development of collective behavior.
Microlevel theories can be further divided into
action or convergence theories and interaction theories.
MICROLEVEL CONVERGENCE THEORIESConvergence theories assume that when a critical
mass of individuals with the same disposition to
act in a situation come together, collective action
occurs almost automatically. In all convergence
theories it is assumed that: ‘‘The individual in the
crowd behaves just as he would behave alone, only
more so,’’ (Allport 1924, p. 295), meaning that
individuals in collective behavior are doing what
they wanted to do anyway, but could not or feared
to do without the ‘‘facilitating’’ effect of similar
behavior by others. The psychological hypothesis
that frustration leads to aggression has been wide-
ly applied in this way to explain racial lynchings
and riots, rebellion and revolution, and other
forms of collective violence. Collective behavior
has been conceived as a collective pursuit of mean-
ing and personal identity when strains and imbal-
ances in social institutions have made meaning
and identity problematic (Klapp 1972). In order to
explain the convergence of a critical mass of peo-
ple experiencing similar frustrations, investigators
posit deprivation shared by members of a social
class, ethnic group, gender group, age group, or
other social category. Because empirical evidence
has shown consistently that the most deprived are
not the most likely to engage in collective protest,
more sophisticated investigators assume a condi-
tion of relative deprivation (Gurr 1970), based on a
discrepancy between expectations and actual con-
ditions. Relative deprivation frequently follows a
period of rising expectations brought on by im-
proving conditions, interrupted by a setback, as in
the J-curve hypothesis of revolution (Davies 1962).
Early explanations for collective behavior, general-
ly contradicted by empirical evidence and repudi-
ated by serious scholars, characterized much crowd
behavior and many social movements as the work
of criminals, the mentally disturbed, persons suf-
fering from personal identity problems, and other
deviants.Rational decision theories. Several recent con-
vergence theories assume that people make ration-
al decisions to participate or not to participate in
collective behavior on the basis of selfinterest.
Two important theories of this sort are those of
Richard Berk and Mark Granovetter.Berk (1974) defines collective behavior as the
behavior of people in crowds, which means activity
that is transitory, not well planned in advance,
involving face-to-face contact among participants,
and considerable cooperation, though he also in-
cludes panic as competitive collective behavior.
Fundamental to his theory is the assumption that
crowd activity involves rational, goal-directed ac-
tion, in which possible rewards and costs are con-
sidered along with the chances of support from
others in the crowd. Rational decision making
means reviewing viable options, forecasting events
that may occur, arranging information and choices
in chronological order, evaluating the possible
consequences of alternative courses of action, judg-
ing the chances that uncertain events will occur,
and choosing actions that minimize costs and maxi-
mize benefits. Since the best outcome for an indi-
vidual in collective behavior depends fundamen-
tally on what other people will do, participants
attempt to advance their own interests by recruit-
ing others and through negotiation. Berk’s theory
does not explain the origin and nature of the
proposals for action that are heard in the crowd,
but describes the process by which these proposals