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Gustave Le Bon Collective Behavior Theory

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SOC 1502 LEARNING JOURNAL UNIT 8

INTRODUCTION
The French born Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon was a man of wide-ranged knowledge whose scholarly focus included Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Medicine, Invention, and Physics (Wikipedia, October 26, 2016,). He is also credited for his work titled The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, that he published in 1895. This work is widely respected as one of the most important works about crowd psychology (Wikipedia).

LE BON’S VIEWS
Regarding this week’s/Unit 8 reading (Chapters 17 & 21), Gustave Le Bon’s views are encountered in the latter; Chapter 21: Social Movements and Social Change. Writing in the The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Le Bon begins his discourse by trying to define …show more content…

These individuals on occasion engage in some form of cooperative deportment. By the way, a collective behavior is defined as “a non-institutionalized activity in which several people voluntarily engage.” (Little). Four basic forms of collective behavior are distinguished: crowd, the mass, the public, and social movements. Further, crowds may be classified as casual, conventional, expressive, or acting crowds. These classifications stem from purpose that helps to create the given type. For instance, a conventional crowd is formed when people come together for an arranged event while a casual crowd is made of people who, while not actually interrelating, happen to be in the same place at the same …show more content…

It is the individuals’ contributions that shape the behavior of a crowd. The emergent norm theory is premised on the symbolic interactionist viewpoint. Another theory, value-added theory developed by Neil Smelser in 1962 based on the functionalist convention maintains that every condition in a crowd augments to the probability that collective behavior will occur. Likewise, assembling perspective, developed in 1991 by interactionist sociologist named Clark McPhail credits individuals in crowds as rational beings. The latter focuses on collective action rather than collective

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