Theory of Collective Behavior (Classic Reprint) - Couverture souple

Neil J. Smelser

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1330316223 ISBN 13 : 9781330316221

Editeur : Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Unlock the patterns behind crowd moments that shape history. This rigorous, accessible study explains how collective behavior forms, spreads, and changes how people act together in societies.

This edition walks you through the field Smelser helped define, showing why episodes like panics, crazes, hostilities, and social movements happen, and how scholars analyze them. It frames key questions, names the main types, and outlines a shared approach to measure and compare these social phenomena, with an eye toward turning complex behavior into clearer explanations.

• Learn the core types of collective behavior, including panics, crazes, hostile outbursts, and different kinds of movements.


• See how concepts like structural conduciveness, strain, mobilization, and social control explain why events begin and end.


• Understand how researchers distinguish similar phenomena and why careful terminology matters.


• Explore how a sociological approach can illuminate patterns across time and cultures.

Ideal for readers of sociology and social psychology who want a clear, thoughtful map of how collective actions arise and resolve.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Excerpt from Theory of Collective Behavior

Gordon W. Allport of Harvard first introduced me to the study of collective behavior. When I was a freshman in 1948, his introductory course in Social Relations set my mind working. Later, when I was a graduate student in 1955, he reactivated and deepened these workings. During the years after studying with him his words have returned to haunt me. So far as I know, he is unaware of my intellectual debt; I should like to record it now.

In working on my doctoral dissertation I delved into the collective protests of the British working classes in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In trying to decipher the content and timing of these eruptions, I came to be deeply impressed with the explanatory potential of a distinctively sociological approach. The idea of attempting a theoretical synthesis of collective behavior came to me in the summer of 1958. Since then I have worked continually on this volume.

Between 1959 and 1961 I was a member of the Center for Integrated Social Science Theory at the University of California, Berkeley. Known familiarly as the Theory Center, this group consisted of six or seven scholars from various departments. Each member was relieved of academic duties for one semester in each of his two years in the Center. At meetings we discussed theoretical issues arising from the work of one or more members. We had no office for meetings; we wandered peripatetically from one member's study to another. We had no secretary, no research assistants, no stationery with letterhead. Simple as it was, the Theory Center had unparalleled value. With the advance of academic specialization in the mid-twentieth century, few things can be more salutary than to have scholars take temporary leave from the confines of their research projects to discover the minds of others in an unhurried atmosphere.

In the Theory Center we read one another's work with great care and did not fear...

Présentation de l'éditeur

Theory of Collective Behavior by Neil J. Smelser is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This publication was produced from a professional scan of an original edition of the book, which can include imperfections from the original book or through the scanning process, and has been created from an edition which we consider to be of the best possible quality available. This popular classic work by Neil J. Smelser is in the English language. Theory of Collective Behavior is highly recommended for those who enjoy the works of Neil J. Smelser, and for those discovering the works of Neil J. Smelser for the first time.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Forgotten Books
• Date d'édition: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1330316223
• ISBN 13: 9781330316221
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 452
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