Theory of collective behavior by Neil J. Smelser Free PDF book (1965)





Excerpt from the author's introduction:









The Problem. In all civilizations, men have thrown themselves into episodes of dramatic behavior, such as the craze, the riot, and the revolution.





Often we react emotionally to these episodes. We stand, for instance, amused by the foibles of the craze, aghast at the cruelties of the riot, and inspired by the fervor of the revolution. The nature of these episodes has long excited the curiosity of speculative thinkers. In recent times this curiosity has evolved into a loosely defined field of sociology and social psychology known as collective behavior. Even though many thinkers in this field attempt to be objective, they frequently describe collective episodes as if they were the work of mysterious forces. Crowds, for instance, are "fickle," "irrational," or "spontaneous," and their behavior is "unanticipated" or "surprising." For all their graphic quality, such terms are unsatisfactory. They imply that collective behavior flows from sources beyond empirical explanation.





The language of the field, in short, shrouds its very subject in indeterminacy. Our aim in this study is to reduce this residue of indeterminacy which lingers in explanations of collective outbursts. Although wild rumors, crazes, panics, riots, and revolutions are surprising, they occur with regularity. They cluster in time; they cluster in certain cultural areas; they occur with greater frequency among certain social groupings — the unemployed, the recent migrant, the adolescent. This skewing in time and in social space invites explanation: Why do collective episodes occur where they do, when they do, and in the ways they do?





Contents of the book

I analyzing collective behavior 111 basic concepts: the components of socialAction 23Iii structural strain underlying collectiveBehavior 47Iv the nature of collective behavior 67V the creation of generalized beliefs 79Vi the panic 131' vii the craze 170Viii the hostile outburst 222Ix the norm-oriented movement 270X the value-oriented movement 313Xi concluding remarks 382Bibliography 388Index 428