ABSTRACT
In Chapter I we presented the issues that must be confronted in any systematic attempt to account for collective behavior. We tentatively defined collective behavior, identified its major types, and specified its general determinants. In Chapter II we outlined a conceptual framework for analyzing collective behavior. We isolated the components of social action (viz., values, norms, mobilization of motivation, and facilities), explored the relations among the components, and examined the composition of each component. In Chapter III we sketched, in terms of the components of action, the major structural strains that give rise to collective behavior. In Chapter IV we specified—again in the same terms—the general character of collective behavior. We defined it as an uninstitutionalized mobilization to reconstitute a component of social action on the basis of a generalized belief—hysterical, wish-fulfillment, hostile, norm-oriented, and value-oriented. Finally, in Chapters VI–X we examined the determinants of each form of collective behavior—the panic, the craze, the hostile outburst, the norm-oriented movement, and the value-oriented movement. The major determinants are structural conduciveness, strain, crystallization of a generalized belief, precipitating factors, mobilization for action, and social control.
