Social Psychological Perspectives on Crowds and Social Movements

Abstract

Historically, the study of crowds and social movements has been animated by three broad and inclusive questions: What are the conditions underlying the emergence or mobilization of the collective phenomenon in question? Who participates and why some individuals or categories of individuals rather than others? And what are the consequences of the collective phenomena in relation to its targets and for its participants and its broader constituents? Although these are not the only questions that students of crowds and social movements have pursued, they clearly encompass the bulk of the research and writing among scholars of both crowd phenomena and social movements. How has social psychology informed the answers to these focal questions? For the most part, social psychological research and theorization on crowds and social movements has addressed issues and questions relating directly to matters of participation, including the individual-level consequences of participation, thus contributing answers to the second and third questions. In this chapter, we elaborate these answers and contributions in terms of four theoretical perspectives and four concepts that have currency in both social psychology and the study of social movements and that are relevant to a broad-based understanding of participation in crowds and social movement activities. The four theoretical perspectives include what we call the dispositional perspective, learning and socialization models, the rational choice approach, and social constructionism. The four cornerstone concepts include grievances, symbolization, emotion, and identity. We focus our assessment of each perspective on these four concepts