Chapter 22

1. Chapter 22 Collective Behaviour and Social Movements

3. Theories of Collective Behaviour • Collective behaviour: as the relatively spontaneous and unstructured behaviour of a group of people who are reacting to a common influence in an ambiguous situation (Smelser 1981). • Emergent-Norm Perspective (緊急規範觀點): a collective definition of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour emerges during episodes of collective behaviour.

4. Valued-added perspective (價值累加觀點): to explain how broad social conditions are transformed in a definite pattern into some form of collective behaviour. • Assembling perspective (集結觀點): seeks to explain how and why people move from different points in space to a common location. (periodic assemblies and non-periodic assemblies)

5. Forms of Collective Behaviour • Crowds: are temporary grouping of people in close proximity who share a common focus or interest. • Disaster Behaviour (災難行為): refers to a sudden or disruptive event or set of events that overtaxes a community’s resources so that outside aid is necessary. • Fads (時髦): are temporary patterns of behaviour involving large numbers of people; Fashions (時尚): are pleasurable mass involvements that feature a certain amount of acceptance by society and have a line of historical continuity.

6. A panic (恐慌): refer to a fearful arousal or collective flight based on a generalised belief that may or may not be accurate. A craze (時狂): refer to an exciting mass involvement that lasts for a relatively long period of time. • A rumour (謠言): refer to a piece of information gathered informally that is used to interpret an ambiguous situation. • Public (公眾) refers to a dispersed group of people, not necessarily in contact with one another, who share interest in an issue.

7. Public opinion: refers to expressions of attitudes on matters of public policy that are communicated to decision makers. • Social movement (社會運動): refers to organised collective activities to bring about or resist fundamental change in an existing group or society. • Relative deprivation (相對剝奪): defined as the conscious feeling of a negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities.

8. Resource mobilisation (資源動員): refers to the ways in which a social movement utilities such resources. The success of a movement for change will depend in good part on how effectively it mobilises its resources. • New social movements (新社會運動): refer to organised collective activities that promote autonomy and self-determination as well as improvements in the quality of life. (women’s movement, lesbian and gay rights, educated, middle-class people are significantly represented)