Collective Behaviour

Collective Behaviour Theory in Psychology

Collective behaviour refers to people's actions and activities when they are a part of a larger group, where they are organised enough to share mentalities and general goals. Typically, the crowd has common interests and a sense of identity. People who are part of a crowd may influence each other.

Moreover, when part of a crowd, people can even lose their sense of responsibility as they follow the actions of others. The loss of personal responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, and the anonymity a crowded environment offers is why people who would never commit crimes on their own can do so when they are a part of a rioting crowd.

Collective Behaviour: Definition

Collective behaviour can affect how a person behaves on many levels, so it is important that we understand the definition of collective behaviour. Collective behaviour refers to people's actions when they are a part of a larger group.

Characteristics of Collective Behaviour

Spontaneity, lack of structure, and unpredictability characterise collective behaviour. Individuals involved tend to be heavily influenced by the crowd and lose their sense of individual responsibility for their actions.

Le Bon, who pioneered the early crowd psychology, argued that anonymity, suggestibility, and contagion are the main characteristics of groups that result in collective behaviour.

Later, Leon Festinger coined the term deindividuation, which describes the processes that occur in groups when individuals become anonymous, and personal responsibility is displaced onto the group.

Collective Behaviour Examples

We can distinguish two types of collective behaviour; prosocial and antisocial crowd behaviour.

• Prosocial behaviour occurs when the group's collective actions intend to benefit others.

Fig. 2 - Collective behaviour can influence a crowd.

• Antisocial behaviour refers to socially harmful and disruptive behaviours like violence or vandalism. Antisocial crowd behaviour involves looting, rioting, and often disobedience or violence towards the police.

Crowd behaviour can be unpredictable and quickly shift from prosocial to antisocial, exemplified by the August riots in London in 2011.

Social Factors that Influence Collective Behaviour

Social factors, like the group's influence or culture, are related to the social context. Focus is placed on how certain parts of the environment affect group behaviours.

Collective Behaviour: Social Loafing

Social loafing occurs when individuals put less effort in when working on group activities and projects than when working towards a goal independently, as this is less obvious when part of a group.

The first evidence for social loafing came from Ringelmann's rope-pulling experiment. Ringelmann found that as the number of people pulling the rope increased, each group member exerted less effort to pull the rope. Social loafing likely occurs because the more people are responsible for achieving the goal, the more significant the decrease in individual responsibility and motivation.

Collective Behaviour: Deindividuation

The anonymity of being a part of the crowd reduces individuals' sense of responsibility for their actions and makes them more likely to break social norms. Deindividuation also involves a shift of identity; individuals can get immersed in the group's identity, and their sense of identity takes a backseat. Deindividuation doesn't only occur in collective behaviour; one's social role or obedience to authority combined with a sense of anonymity can elicit is as well.

Collective Behaviour: Culture

Cultural context can influence people's values and perceived responsibility. Individualistic cultures focus mainly on achieving their individual goals and meeting their individual needs. In collectivist cultures, the focus is on supporting the group you are a part of, so the group's goals are achieved.

The greater sense of responsibility for achieving group goals in collectivist cultures can affect the susceptibility to collective behaviour within them.

Dispositional Factors that Influence Collective Behaviour

Dispositional factors refer to the characteristics of an individual. Individual differences make some people more susceptible to group influence than others. Some individuals still work hard when working in large groups or refuse to engage in crowd behaviours that do not align with their values.

Collective Behaviour: Personality

An aspect of personality that can influence our susceptibility to collective influence is the locus of control.

Individuals with an internal locus of control feel responsible for their behaviour and the outcomes of their actions. While individuals with an external locus of control tend to attribute what happens to them to external factors like chance or the influence of others. Having an internal locus of control can generally make individuals less susceptible to group influence, as they have a greater sense of personal responsibility.

Fig. 3 - Demonstration of the LOC spectrum.

Collective Behaviour: Morality

Morality refers to a sense of what behaviour is right and what behaviour is wrong. What behaviours we deem moral or immoral can vary depending on the individual. Different people also have different degrees of 'moral strength' or conviction to their moral values. Having a strong sense of morality can make individuals less likely to engage in crowd behaviour that does not align with their moral values.

However, crowd behaviour can still influence some people with an internal locus of control and a strong sense of morality due to situational factors like deindividuation.

Implications of Collective Behaviour

Why is it important to understand the dynamics of collective behaviour?

• Understanding processes like deindividuation has practical implications for preventing and predicting outbreaks of riots by increasing surveillance and accountability.

• Understanding crowd behaviour cross-culturally also has implications for organising evacuations or managing large crowds for public safety.

• Social loafing is an important concept for any situation that involves group work. Employers and educators can be mindful of it when supervising group projects and minimise its effects by, for example, increasing individual accountability for contributions.