Collective Behaviors versus Social Movements:An examination of the differences

DOI

10.2991/icassr.2013.22How to use a DOI?

Keywords

collective behavior, social movements, agent provocateur, informant, collective action.

Abstract

Confusion has existed for some time in collective behavior (CB) and social movement (SM) studies. In light of this confusion, I have endeavored to demonstrate, through examination of past research, the inconsistencies and erroneous postulations of cornerstone studies and propose a more adequate base model that demonstrates the differences between CBs and SMs – classifications that have, in the past, been used interchangeably. In addition to clarifying CBs and SMs, the specific characteristics that would assist in categorizing collective phenomena into one of the two classifications will be delineated. It has been found that CBs can be identified by observed high levels of emotion, heterogeneity, novelty, and spontaneity, while SMs can be identified by observed high levels of homogeneity, longevity/ stability, organization and resources. Finally, it is demonstrated that leadership-participants (agent provocateurs [APs] and informants) are more likely to be evident in either CBs or SMs. APs are more likely to be leader-participants in CBs while informants are more likely to be leader-participants in SMs. It should be understood that collective behaviors and social movements are not the same phenomena and that both categories as well as the attributes should be considered with a continuum model developed in this piece.

Copyright

© 2013, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - William J. Jr. Tinney
PY  - 2013/08
DA  - 2013/08
TI  - Collective Behaviors versus Social Movements:An examination of the differences
BT  - Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Applied Social Science Research (ICASSR-2013)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 74
EP  - 79
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icassr.2013.22
DO  - 10.2991/icassr.2013.22
ID  - Tinney2013/08
ER  -