ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the pronounced neglect of forms is having a critically retarding effect on the development of the field of collective behaviour. It suggests that the next large step in that debate will take the form of specifying the taxonomical location of the operation of each of those processes. The most basic question of “form” is, of course, that of collective behavior itself as a form relative to other social forms. The idealized profile of collective behavior, then, is unanimous, and maximum suspension of the attitude of everyday life in a collectivity combined with uniform and maximal emotional arousal and universally adopted extraordinary activities. In so constitutionally incorporating the idea of diversity within and between collective behavior episodes, one of the major contributions of the emergent norm approach is elevated to a preeminent consideration. The analytic problem for collective behavior is where to draw the line between such mass fear and ordinary public opinion.
