Together Apart by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2020-07-06T19:29:44.130339+00:00

Intergroup dynamics determine crowd behaviour

Thus far, we have concentrated mainly on the psychological transformation that occurs within a psychological crowd – the intragroup dynamics. But crowd events are not just about the crowd. Typically, they involve more than one group – for example, fans of two rival sports teams, or protestors and counter-protestors, or, perhaps most frequently, the crowd and the police. No analysis of crowds is complete, therefore, without examining the processes that occur between groups – the intergroup dynamics. This is particularly important if we want to understand how crowd conflict emerges (the topic of Chapters 16 and 18).

The key point is that violence and conflict do not inhere in the crowd in general, or even in the norms, values and beliefs of particular crowds (although some may be more or less opposed to the use of violence). Generally, it arises out of the interaction between multiple parties (Neville & Reicher, 2018). If one group is seen to be acting in ways that appear to threaten the other, or else to violate its sense of rights (either forcing them to do something they consider illegitimate or preventing them from doing something they consider legitimate), then this is likely to be contested, resulting in a spiral of tension that can culminate in violent conflict (Reicher, 1996). There are, of course, many different forms this can take. Where a community is divided among itself and particular minorities are accused of threatening the majority, it can lead to the type of pogroms described in Chapter 1 (see Reicher, Haslam, & Rath, 2008; also Chapters 19 and 20). Indeed, given that stigmatised groups are often considered dirty and diseased, this is particularly potent in a pandemic.

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