Crowds

Crowds Definition

Crowds are large numbers of people gathered in close physical proximity with a common concern. An early preoccupation of social psychologists such as Gustave Le Bon and Gabriel Tarde — who traced crowd behaviour to herd instincts and mass imitation — the study of crowds now belongs to the sociology of collective behaviour.

Types of Crowds

A standard distinction separates focused, instrumental crowds, which pursue a clear goal such as attending a rally, from expressive crowds, which aim at their own emotional satisfaction — a dancing crowd at a carnival, for example. The line is not always easy to draw, as riots illustrate: some analysts treat riots as expressive and purely emotional outbursts of rage and destruction, while others see them as instrumental — a political statement, or a criminal act of theft and damage. A further, equally ambiguous contrast opposes focused crowds, organised around a specific object or goal, to diffuse crowds, which are uncertain and suggestible, marked by milling and rumour.

Key Works

An important series of clarifications of these distinctions appears in Ralph H. Turner and Lewis M. Killian’s Collective Behaviour (1957), which is also associated with the theory of emergent norms.