Mass Action (sociology)
Mass action in sociology refers to the situations where a large number of people behave simultaneously in a similar way but individually and without coordination.
For example, at any given moment, many thousands of people are shopping - without any coordination between themselves, they are nonetheless performing the same mass action. Another, more complicated example would be one based on a work of 19th century German sociologist Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber wrote that capitalism evolved when the Protestant ethic influenced large number of people to create their own enterprises and engage in trade and gathering of wealth. In other words, the Protestant ethic was a force behind an unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that led to the development of capitalism.
A bank run is mass action with sweeping implications. Upon hearing news of a bank's anticipated insolvency, hundreds or thousands of bank depositors simultaneously rush down to a bank branch to withdraw their deposits, and protect their savings.
More developed forms of mass actions are group behavior and group action.
Read more about Mass Action (sociology): Epidemiology Meaning, Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words mass and/or action:
“... the mass migrations now habitual in our nation are disastrous to the family and to the formation of individual character. It is impossible to create a stable society if something like a third of our people are constantly moving about. We cannot grow fine human beings, any more than we can grow fine trees, if they are constantly torn up by the roots and transplanted ...”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit, which is directly received.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)