The expression collective behavior was first used by Robert E. Park, and employed definitively by Herbert Blumer, to refer to social processes and events which do not reflect existing social structure (laws, conventions, and institutions), but which emerge in a "spontaneous" way.
Collective behavior might also be defined as action which is neither conforming (in which actors follow prevailing norms) nor deviant (in which actors violate those norms). Collective behavior, a third form of action, takes place when norms are absent or unclear, or when they contradict each other. Scholars have devoted far less attention to collective behavior than they have to either conformity or deviance.
Read more about Collective Behavior: Defining The Field, Examples of Collective Behavior, Theories Developed To Explain Crowd Behavior, Criticisms and Evidence
Other articles related to "collective behavior, collective, behavior":
... Game theory suggests that even during a panic in a burning theater actors may conduct themselves rationally ... This is a striking suggestion, given that panics have been described as the purest form of collective behavior ...
... in a 1939 article, called to attention a new subfield of sociology collective behavior ... This now developed area of inquiry is devoted to the exploration of collective action and behavior that is not yet organized under an institutional structure or formation ... Blumer was particularly interested in the spontaneous collective coordination that occurs when something that is unpredicted disrupt standardized group ...
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