On crowds by Van de Sande (2005) - Article

Summary of the article On crowds by Van de Sande (2005)

The writer of this text doesn’t think that people will eventually lose their negative characteristics. Stupidity and crowd behaviour have existed throughout the most part of our history and he think that they will exist as long as there is mankind. That’s because they are part of human nature. The writer thinks we are in a calm time of crowd behaviour, but we will soon come in a more turmoil situation.

People have always been fascinated and willing to participate in crowds and this fascination probably has caused many misperceptions about crowds. People often draw wrong conclusions out of true data, because they are more motivated to reach quick and welcome conclusions than the unfriendly truth they need to put in more effort for. If people don’t have the true facts, they often make up a plausible truth about the statements. One important bias is the observer bias. When people see something happen, they try to seek the causes for the behaviour of the person they are observing, because this person is the most salient to us. The actors look at their surroundings to find causes, because the situation is the most salient for him. Observers looking at the crowd will see the as a causal factor for conflict, while the crowd will see the surrounding, like the government, as a causal factor. The observer bias is often accompanied by thee Fundamental attribution error. This refers to the tendency of humans to seek the causes of behaviour in characteristics of persons instead of in the context a person is in. another common bias is the self-serving bias. This means that a person wants to maintain a positive image of himself/herself and his/her group. Another bias is that people make simple inferences. Causes of behaviour are ascribed to factors a person is aware of. These are often unstable and obvious factors. These four biases and some other ones create a certain idea that people have about crowds. These ideas are that crowds are seen as uniform in their behaviour and as a unity, crowd behaviour is seen as primitive and irrational, crowd action is seen as negative, the influence of personality is overestimated, the influence of situational and physiological factors is underestimated and the believe that behaviour should be accounted for by one theory.

History, types and occurrences

Crowds could be found in ancient Greece, Egypt and Persia and also during the Middle ages and modern times. Their occurrences are diverse. The different occurrences throughout history can be found on page 9 of the book. There have been crowds that can also be found today, there have been crowds against rulers, classifications, sport, economy and poverty. But our knowledge on crowds is incomplete and may be incorrect on some points. There are conflicting descriptions and facts about crowds in different sources. An account about what happened isn’t always correct. A person might be biased by something. There is a difference in the amount of data that is available between the different ages. Also, it’s hard to figure out how reliable the data on crowds of ancient times is. The amount and quality of the information that we have is variable and we also need to integrate the information that we do have into what we already know. However, people tend to judge historical facts in the light of their present situation and so the smaller the common sense for the information. People now think differently about a certain thing than people in history did. The ease with which information can be spread differs between modern and historical times. Because of all these differences, it’s difficult to interpret the historical information that we have.

Regularities in crowd behaviour

It seems that history has its logic and periodicity in human history has been studied by many. Toynbee stated that the rise and fall of civilisations occurred in regularity and that a civilization didn’t survive because of the inability to respond to religious and moral challenges. However, a person must have reliable and complete historic sources to detect whether there have been regularities. Examples of these historic resources are newspapers, which have only existed in recent times. With the help of newspapers, one researcher has looked at the instances of violence in France from 1830 to 1960 and he has discovered that the mean number of years between peaks (a lot of violence) was approximately 25 years. You can see the figure on page 12 of the article. This same time of research was performed in the Netherlands and there it was also found that the mean number of years between peaks was 26. This is quite remarkable, but one must remember that this pattern maybe only holds for western European countries and maybe even just these two countries. The regularity that has been found has to be proved valid, but some explanations for the regularity can be suggested. For instance, the interval of 25 years is suggestive of a generation effect. It’s not weird to believe that each generation has a cause that it wants to propagate. Another explanation is that the competence of governments and police forces to deal with misbehaved citizens becomes forgotten in calm periods. Maybe every 25 years officials need to find new strategies and tactics to deal with citizens.

Names

Crowd phenomena have different names. Large groupings of people are often called crowd, mass, mob, horde, huddle and meute. We also have names from the animal world: herd, pack and flock. Names for crowd phenomena can also be derived from the military world: army, cohort, squad and body. There are also names that imply a disposition in the group (examples of negative ones): plebs and scum. Some names imply a form of organization, like congregation, nation, public, audience and party. Each name seems to point to a different type of grouping and most of us are ware of these differences. We have also names for the activities that these groups undertake: riot, revolution, demonstration, strike, looting and panic.

Crowd behaviour

Some scientists don’t want to use the term crowd behaviour, because the definition of a crowd are not clearly defined. They rather use the term collective behaviour. The lack of a clear definition of what crowds are or aren’t leads to misrepresentation about crowd behaviour. That’s because many writers concentrate on certain classes of crowd behaviour and not on all. Writers that normally use the term collective behaviour, are concerned with organized and institutionalized forms of crowd behaviour, like protest movements. Results of studies can vary because this lack of definition. Also, most scientific studies focus on the more sensational incidences of crowd behaviour, that involve causalities. Most crowd gatherings are peaceful and the conclusions on the sensational crowd can be misleading. Is it possible to find a definition of crowds that takes these different types of crowds into account?

Another thing that might be taken up into the definition of crowds is the lower boundary of participants a crowd should have. Can two people form a crowd? Some studies have looked at crowds that involved 5 or 6 people. It seems that rather small groups can act in a crowd-like fashion and this suggests that crowd-like behaviour depends upon the crowd-like context and embeddedness in a crowd. And also, is there an upper limit? The answer to this last question is no, but it seems weird that the whole population of the world would gather in one big crowd. It appears that only any size will do for a crowd, but small groups (from 2 to 10 people) will only show crowd-like behaviour in a larger crowd-like context or in special situations. Larger crowds create their own contexts. What is important in the definition of crowds, is the co-presence of members. People really have to be at the same space and time in order to be seen as a crowd.

In crowds, normal rules of behaviour partly lose their power and new and simple norms and organisations emerge. Many sociologists state that crowd behaviour is emerging behaviour, because the norms and organisations emerge during the interaction of the crowd. Van Sande has his own definition of crowds: ‘crowds are impermanent groupings of people in one place and time where the usual norms and organisation forms have lost at least part of their power’ (page 17 of the article).

Scientists have long debated whether a crowd is a unity or a aggregation. The view that the group is a unity is the oldest view. This view holds that a group makes its plans and reactions as a unity. The question that arises is to what degree are these behaviours of crowds coordinated and what causes their coordination. Some say that crowds are not just random samples of a population, but that they consist of people who have some characteristics in common. People who are alike, also more attracted towards each other. This is called the similarity/attraction effect. When someone has a similar belief as you do, you will feel assured that your belief is correct. The chances of a conflict with this person will be small and you will also feel more united with this person. Crowds are more homogenous and they are therefore seen as more probable to feel and act in similar ways. Linguistic and methodological reasons also suggest that crowds can be seen as unities. The mental unity of a crowd is another compelling reason for seeing the crowd as a real unity.

Taxonomies

Different taxonomies in crowds can be distinguished. One taxonomy is based on entities. Entities that fall in the same class, form a category. Another taxonomy is the one of properties. This results in a dimensional system. All entities have certain values on every dimensions. The latter taxonomy is better for empirical work and it has no boundaries, so there is no confusion like there is in categorical taxonomies. An important question that arises is what should be the content of the taxonomy. Many different taxonomies can be made, some more convenient than others. Le Bon made a distinction between heterogeneous and homogeneous crowds and a further distinction in heterogeneous crowds was that of anonymous crowds and non-anonymous crowds. He also made a distinction between unorganized and organized crowds. In table 2 on page 21 his taxonomy can be found.

Brown made a classification system for collectives. He looked at four dimensions:

• Size (room size, public hall size, or too large)

• Congregation ( never, temporary-irregular and periodic)

• Polarisation (not focused, temporary focused and periodically focused on an object)

• Identification (never, temporary and enduring identification)

His taxonomy encompasses many different collectivities. His taxonomy of crowds can be found on page 21 in figure 3. According to Brown, corwds are at least public hall sized congregated collectivities that are polarized on a temporary-irregular basis and that are involving temporary identification. Many other taxonomies from other researchers have been devised. One is the taxonomy of Smelser, which is based on four components of social action and mention in another article. Brown’s taxonomy has had the most influence, but many have criticized his choice of dimensions. Many other dimensions have been proposed and some of which could be found in table 3 on page 22. The most difficult part in making dimensional taxonomies is the choice of appropriate dimensions. All depends on the goal of the taxonomist. Three dimensional taxonomies are even possible. A taxonomy can be based on the way situations are perceived. An example of a three dimensional taxonomy on perceived situation can been found in figure 4 on page 24.

Older theories

Throughout history, people have been fascinated by crowds. The books that were written about crowds before the scientific period, were purely for amusement. Mackey was one of these writers. In the second half of the 19^th century, Marx began writing his book ‘Das Kapital.’ He stated in this book that society was becoming more like a mass in every way: mass production, massive number of workers and mass capital. Marx saw a qualitative change produced by mass society. He therefore thought that if the workers would unite, they could bring about change in the power distribution. However, Marx didn’t describe crowds, he prescribed them. One of the consequences of his view was that riots were seen as a positive step. In the end, Marx had a big influence on society and social science. Especially sociology and economics were influenced by his work.

During the same period that Marx worked on his famous book, many other scientists were studying crowds and trying to come up with theories about crowds. Many criminologists and sociologists in Italy were interested in crowd behaviour. Sighele was a lawyer-criminologist and the first to write something about the crowd phenomena in Italy. His main focus was on complicity and he stated that complicity in normal crime, like in the mafia, was different from complicity in crowds. He thought that these differences were brought about by imitation, hypnotic suggestion and contagion. These three elements would work stronger in crowds, because crowds were seen as primitive. These processes would result in a crowd mind and this crowd mind was responsible for the behaviour of the crowd. Sighele thought that people in a crowd could not be held completely responsible for the offences they had committed and that not every person was susceptible in the same way to the crowd mind. He also mentioned that it were often the naïve ones that got caught and punished, instead of the cunning ones. This work led to some acquittals of strikers.

Le Bon’s theory on crowds kind of resembled the work of Sighele. His work was very popular and it has been an inspiration for some of the biggest dictators, like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. His ideas about the crowd were more based on ideology than on real observations. Le Bon believed that the crowd was a unity and he explained this unity through the mechanisms of a collective mind. Because of the group mind, people in a crowd act differently than they would have on their own. People in crowds become more emotional, more suggestible, less rational and more impulsive. Basically, crowds regress to a primitive level. People transform when they come in crowds. Even intelligent individuals regress to a lesser level when they come into crowds. He also states that people in crowds feel more powerful, less observable and less responsible and they therefore let their impulses take the upper hand. This was later called the deindividuation theory of Zimbardo. Le Bon also thinks that hypnosis and suggestion result in the loss of personality. Le Bon’s book was very popular, but it has been criticized. Most criticism is about the impossibility of the group mind and the transformation of crowds. People should keep in mind that crown phenomena could have changed in accordance with the cultural changes. Dekker compared crowds of the 17^th century to the ones of the 18^th century and he saw that crowds in fact had changed. Another thing Le Bon was criticized upon were his ideas about race. However, many theories that were formed in the first half of the 20^th century evolved around this group mind. So, the ideas by Le Bon were quite popular for some time.

Some other theories about crowd behaviour were more individualistic than the group mind theory. These theories did use the concept of group mind, but in these theories it wasn’t the crowd that reasoned or had emotions, it was the individual. Sometimes this was under the form of collective consciousness. One of these theories was the theory of imitation (Tarde). He saw imitation as a fundamental process and crowds could be seen as a gathering of people who imitated each other in different ways, like coming to the same place and showing the same behaviour. He also thought that more factors had an influence on crowd behaviour. However, he did see opposition as the negative of imitation, so he still kept the idea of imitation present. Eventually, imitation and opposition would merge into adaptation. This was also a form of imitation. Tarde was not clear about how imitation worked, but he stated that the somnambulism mechanism was a hypnotic state that could be held responsible for this. Ross agreed with the main ideas of Tarde about imitation, but he thought that suggestibility was the main mechanism behind imitation. In the first half of the 20^th century, Miller and Dollard also tried the explain the traits of crowd behaviour with imitation and learning. They called this imitation modelling. They also stated that the behaviour of crowds was repetitive and that this contributes to the homogeneity of crowds. They also developed the frustration-aggression hypothesis, which states that aggression is an automatic reaction to frustration. Allport opposed the idea of a group mind and he stated that individuals in crowds behave just as they would have alone, but just more extreme. He tries to explain this through the process of social facilitation, which means that action is facilitated through the presence of the crowd.

McDougall lay the foundations of evolutionary psychology. He thought that humans, just like animals, have primary driving forces and these driving forces were called instincts. These instincts are the foundations of our social and cultural behaviour. Cognition and other psychological faculties are only seen as helpers of instincts. However, many didn’t agree with this view on instincts, because it’s monocausal. This means that only one concept is seen as the cause for behaviour. Some of his ideas about instincts, like the idea that instinctive processes are integrated in psychological function (learned cues, more instincts activated at the same time and the tendency of instincts to become organised around a certain object) turned out to be pretty close to what we believe. What was also special about McDougall, was that he didn’t see the crowd as dangerous and criminal, but as a source of attraction for people. He doesn’t explain how certain instincts work, but he sees emotions as important forces of the process.

Freud also looked into collective behaviour and he agreed with a lot of things that Le Bon had to say. However, he did put more emphasis on elements of the psychoanalytical theory, like unconsciousness, hypnotism and impulsivity. Freud goes further than Le Bon by presenting an analysis of the causation of group processes. Freud thinks that people in crowds can shed their defence mechanisms. This is the same as repression in psychoanalytical theory. The behaviours that an individual shows in crowds are unconscious drives which the person would normally repress. According to Freud, the most central drive is the libido. This can be seen as the strong willingness to fuse with other people. However, this is not only in the sexual sense, but also in the unsexual one and the people don’t have to be real, they can also be imaginary. Libido also doesn’t have to refer to people, but it can also refer to inanimate things, the self and ideas. The non-sexual form of being in love is called identification. In crowds, the libido needs strong focus and it should focus on an identifiable entity, like a leader. If all the people in the crowd identify themselves with the leader, then this will lead to the unity of the crowd. Their ego-ideal is focused on the leader. The power of the superego (what is good and what is bad) is given to the leader. All of the above shows that Freud thinks that all mass phenomena strip a person of his or her self-control and independence. The group think that occurs is because of the libidinal ties to the group’s leader. The leader must have certain characteristics in order to become a leader. Freud thinks that narcissism is high in these leaders. The leader hasn’t loved anyone besides himself. When this leader is loved, he will be acknowledged in his standpoint and he will become even more stronger. This will, in turn, result in more identification from the group members.

Canetti also had a history in psychoanalytical theory and his ideas about the innate drives resembled those of Freud. Canetti stated that every person had a fear of being touched. Out of nowhere, this fear can change and become a wish for being touched and for touching others. This is what happens in crowds, according to Canetti. Being in a crowds means letting go of the fear. It can be seen as a discharge. The distances that are normal felt between individuals, are lessened in a crowd. Power differences disappear and therefore also a part of the culture of groups (one’s property and rank). Crowds do things differently than normal and that’s why destruction is quite common in crowds. Crowds always consider someone or something an enemy. There are two distinctions Canetti makes in crowds: closed crowds and open crowds. Closed crowds are for the temporary release of the restrictions that people have and these crowds do not want to change the state of things permanently. In closed crowds, there is not much destruction. These type of crowds also don’t grow that much, because they are only open for members of their culture. Open crowds are larger and open to anyone and they want to change the state of things in a culture. Examples of open crowds are revolutions and demonstrations. Closed crowds can turn into open crowds, but the other way around doesn’t really work. According to Canetti, a small dedicated group of people can be the beginning point of a crowd. This beginning point is called a Mass crystal by Canetti. The presence of crowd symbols can also result in crowd formation. According to Canetti, the crowd has four characteristics: there is equality in the crowd, the crowds wants to grow, the crowd needs a direction and the crowd wants to be very dense. Canetti offers a couple of ideas on how to control a riot. Because crowds need an enemy, it is a good idea to give in to some of their demands. That way, they will see you less as an enemy and the group will stop growing. A crowd that stops growing, will eventually perish. He also states that it would be wise to see things from the viewpoint of the crowd, in order to understand the emotions that dominate the crowd.

Participants, processes and motives

Many processes take place when people assemble in crowds. Some people wonder whether these processes are coupled to time. They seem to be in fact coupled to time in different ways. As mentioned before previously, it seems that there are periods of relative calm alternated by periods of unrest. Also, some crowd phenomena happen quite regularly. Examples of these are pilgrimages. There is even a regular pattern over the seasons of the year, which will be discussed later. Not all crowds last a day, some can last more days and still occur at a certain period of time, like the pilgrimage (Haj) to Mecca. It might be handy to place crowd phenomena on a dimension of development, which on the one end a sudden development and on the other the gradual development. Periods of civil unrest and crazes developed gradually and riots and panics appear to develop very quickly.

Many stage or phase models of crowd phenomena have been proposed. Van de Sande (the writer of this article) and Wortel developed a three stage model:

1. Planning: the whole period before the day that the crowd phenomenon takes place. The people act on their own or in small groups and they try to prepare for what there is to come. They make plans about what to do. They also want to get to know about the plans of others.

2. Mobilization: the day the crowd phenomenon takes place. People need to meet up with friends and discuss what’s happening that day.

3. Action: the main part of the day. The phenomenon at question takes place, like a demonstration or a parade.

This last phase often doesn’t offer problems, but sometimes tensions can form and problems can arise in crowds. These problems come in three different kinds. The first kind is that the chance of accidents is higher in crowds. People drink or get aroused and do foolish things. The second problem is that of fights. This usually occurs when an incident has taken place and the police takes measures that are not well liked by the crowd. The most dangerous problem is a problem in the locomotion. People can fall and others might stand on them. Also, people might get squashed. Some scientists also state there is another phase, the Violence phase. This is the phase in which antisocial behaviour takes place. Example of these are looting, fighting and aggressive behaviour. Luckily, the violence phase is seldom reached. Some researchers see the dissolution phase as a fourth phase. It is often thought that crowds are more violent later on the day. This is not really far-fetched, because the tendency towards violent crowd action gets stronger during the day. Some special cases of crowds concentrate on certain times of the day. Dancehall parties happen during the night and hooliganism happens around soccer games.

Researchers have also wondered whether there is a specific place that is related to crowd behaviour. A crowd can only be seen as one if the members are assembled in a certain space. It seems that a lot of crowds start when something attracting is happening. Examples of attracting forces are free concerts, accidents or chases. Places with a high valence are soccer stadiums, city squares with statues with symbolic meanings and pilgrimage places. These high valence places are more common in big cities than in the country. In big cities, it’s usually the centre of a town or a neighbourhood that forms the beginning stage for crowd action. In rural areas there are often not enough people to form a crowd before the attraction has gone away. Crowd action that does take place in rural areas is often planned ahead, like a musical festival. When people see something interesting, they will roam around it until they are held up by some push-factor (fear). This is the approach-avoidant conflict.

Structure

Crowds can take different shapes. The general stereotype we have about crowds are that of a large mass of people, tightly packed together. However, crowds are often dispersed over the available area. The form a crowd can take is obviously determined by the surroundings. In the animal world, there seems to be a nice formation of animal crowds. Swarms and shoals keep a certain natural formation. Crowds gathered in cities usually don’t have natural formations. Buildings and other things in the surrounds prevent this from happening. Also, usually people hold to the norms about public space, but for crowds these norms cease to work. Normally, people respect all kinds of territories, but people in crowds lose respect for territories. Usually, everyone wants to keep his or her personal space, especially when it comes to stranger, but in crowds, people can be really close to strangers. In everyday life, most people don’t try to attract attention and they keep up a good appearance, but in crowd events, it seems that they love this attention and are demanding it.

Many crowds gather to attend a performance and these crowds are called polarised (by Milgram and Toch). Because people want to see something special, they are directed towards this special attraction. There is a centre of attention and the further you are of this centre, the more you will get distracted by other things. These crowds will form arc-shaped assemblies. Non-polarized crowds are crowds that are without a common centre of attention. In these types of crowds, different groups interact at the same time. These crowds may be a bit more boring than polarized ones, because nothing attractive is happening. Specific people have a certain place in crowds. People who have some official function are placed in front of the crowd, while trouble makers try to hide somewhat in the crowd. Also, in peaceful crowds there are a lot of different people and all these people are not recognizable as nice or naughty. In violent crowds there are sheep and wolves. The wolves look for confrontation, while the sheep move to the outside of the crowd to watch what is happening. The structure of crowds can change once some action starts happening.

Communication and organisation are often restricted in crowds. Studies on violent crowds show that more than 90% of the people present are not involved in aggressive action. These people are labelled as onlookers or sheep. Approximately 10% acts aggressively and most of these people start if others have started. These are labelled the followers. Only 1% is really a rotten apple and arranges aggressive behaviour. These are labelled the hard core. Crowds do not exist of homogenous individuals.

Factors influencing crowd processes

There are some factors that seem to influence crowd processes or that are thought (by lay-people) to influence crowd processes. Many people think that long, hot summers influence crowd processes. Research has shown that riots and crimes happen more during summer than in winter. Temperature can have a direct and an indirect influence on this. Studies have shown a curvilinear relation between temperature and domestic political violence. Hot countries (30 degrees show a bit less domestic political violence than warm countries (24 degrees). Both show more violence than cold countries (17 degrees). One explanation that has been given is the opportunity explanation. People just tend to go out more when temperatures are high and going out facilitates crowd behaviour, interactions and aggression. Studies have also shown that hot temperatures have an influence on physiology, which results in greater irritability. One study in Holland showed that there are more riots in the summer months than the other months. A figure of this can be found on page 43 of the article. In the months May to October, there are more riots than in the other months.

The presence of static electricity (positive ions) has an influence on behaviour in crowd settings. It has the same influence as heat. It heightens irritability and negative affect. Aversive weather conditions like rain, wind and fog dampen the influence on aggression in crowds. This is because there are less participants in aversive weather conditions and because a shift of attention to other problems (cold feet, finding a sheltered place) takes place.

Another factor that has an influence on crowds is crowding. Crowding is seen as a negative experience and this causes negative affect. Negative affect is related to aggression and thus crowding is a factor that promotes aggression in crowds. Noise levels also increase aggressive behaviour under certain circumstances. These circumstances are that a person must be frustrated in a sense and he/she can’t control the amount of noise (the dog of a cop is barking, sirens of police car). Alcohol is also a factor that influences the behaviour of a crowd. Alcohol influences affective states and narrows attention. Alcohol is associated with aggression. The effects of alcohol are greater if you take more and the effects are mainly physiological, not due to suggestion. Some state that alcohol blocks response inhibitions and because of this, people who have drunk a lot of alcohol show social behaviours that are more extreme than normal. Drugs also seem to have these kind of effects. Another factor is the presence of aggressive cues in the environment. The mere presence of aggressive cues (like a visible gun) in the environment heightens people’s tendencies to aggress when a person is already frustrated or has a negative arousal. This is called the weapon effect. Police should think about displaying certain guns or other elements that might heighten aggressiveness in crowd members. Another factor that has influence on crowd behaviour is the use of cell phones and internet. Many people all over the world use cell phones. Whenever something interesting is going on, people call their friends or make a picture of it and place it on social media. Also, when a person gets into a fight, he can call his friends to come immediately. Internet can also be used as a mobilising force. A person can post the data and place for a protest rally. The attitudes and opinions are expressed on social media and a sense of community can be created.

Participants

Different happenings will attract different people. This is called the convergence hypothesis. This effect will be stronger when people better know what to expect from a happening. When the expectations are cleared, the composition of crowds will be more uniform. The media and hearsay can give more information about what to expect from the event. The types of people that are interested in crowd events differ according to the events planned. Many crowds present something sensational and new and so for every crowd, people who seek sensation and novelty can be expected to join. Research has found that people who participated in unruly behaviour score higher than the average person on aggression, sensation seeking and risk orientation.

Many studies have shown that the average age of crowd participants is 18 years. But there seems to be more to this over representation of young people in crowds. Some state that it’s not the age per se that determines the participation in the crowd, but the fact that youth characteristics are associated with aggression and the need for sensation. Also, younger people have not really build a life for them and so they don’t have much to lose (that’s at least what they think). No definite conclusion has been found on other factors, like social class.

Motives

There is much debate on what motivation consists of. In this text, motives are seen as factors that contribute to the formation of behaviour. Many scientists state that needs, drives, instincts and goals are the four psychological factors that motivate people. These four concepts have a temporary influence on behaviour. People can have different goals, needs, drives and instincts. All these different elements can be differed according to strength. Some needs, goals et cetera are continuously active and the strength of them determines which one gets the upper hand. Some motivations seem to be conscious, while others work in unconscious ways. Unconscious processes are important determinants of one’s ideas and therefore also of motivation. An implication of this is that actors and observers present accounts of the actor’s motivation that differ from each other.

When the achievement of a goal or a need is prevented, it’s referred to as frustration. Frustration can work as a motivator. People in crowds have their own interests and motivations. If the motivations are hindered, then the extra motivational factor of frustration can heighten levels of arousal and aggressive behaviour. Motivation plays a big role in crowds. One of the most important roles it plays is probably deciding whether one will attend a gathering that will probably become a crowd in the first place. Crowds gather different people and these people all have their own motives of joining crowds. Some scientists think that people who join crowds have the conscious or unconscious experience of missing something. The thing that they feel they are missing differs from person to person. It can be sensation, food, rights and so on. The things that can be missed fall in two categories: power motives and sensation motives. The former has to do with control. It can be about gaining control over others (dominance motives), gaining control over circumstances, over confusion, government or one-self. The power of a citizen often relates to his age and his position in society. Powerlessness and deprivation are often seen as the main sources of societal unrest. People can also have less serious motives to join crowds. These motivates fall into the category of sensation motives. Some people want new experiences or amusement. This motivation is also called internal motivation: a person doesn’t strive for an external goal, but for an egocentric one. People with these motives are often, but not always, more amused by the awful things that are happening in crowds. But overall, it seems that these people want to have a good time, especially when they go to festivals and sports games. Aggression is scarce in these events, but there are some conditions that can be hazardous. Some of these are boredom, alcohol and a too relaxed order enforcement.