Collective Behavior

483 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of imf and world bank in economic development

On Saturday, April 15, protesters gathered in Washington DC in opposition of the IMF and World Bank. The two institutions were to have their spring meeting this weekend and the approximately ten thousand protesters, whose main point is the elimination of poverty, paraded down the streets of DC The protesters feel that what the IMF and World Bank do not see the short term effects of their proposals for economic growth, which include unemployment and increased poverty. The protesters feel that the only people benefiting from such ideas are the large corporations. Fortunately, though many were arrested, none were seriously injured, as was the case with protesters in Seattle in November. This was due to the fact that the Washington police prepared well in advance, securing the appropriate buildings as well as purchasing new riot gear.
This event is an example of a social movement. This was simply an organized group of people that gathered for the purpose of resisting change (In this case, the strategies discussed by the aforementioned institutions) through their collective action. Specifically, this type of social movement is called a resistance movement, because this group was in opposition to change of a certain aspect of our society.
The main reason why activists gathered in protest on Saturday was to expose the World Bank and IMF practices and policies that the protesters believe have led to the degeneration of the...

Show More
Related

  • Charles Stewart's Persuasion And Social Movements

    1848 Words  | 4 Pages

    Existing within the movement must be a leader or leaders, as well as a large number of committed followers or members. Additionally, social movements have “organizations or coalitions” working as a guiding backbone for collectivity and regulation (Stewart,

    Read More

  • Breaking The Spell King's Approach To Civil Disobedience

    630 Words  | 2 Pages

    As for the protest of the WTO it was a prime example of how not to organize and conduct a protest. Although no individuals were seriously hurt or killed, property damage and the shut down of the city cost millions. On the first two days of what was supposed to be a three day meeting of the WTO they were prevented from meeting by the protesters.

    Read More

  • Vietnam: The Mixture of Protests and Politics

    1644 Words  | 4 Pages

    Protests have long been a way for people to display their difference in opinion and gain support. One of the many protests against the war that had a powerful effect on public opini...

    Read More

  • Occupy Wall Street: An Inefficient Protest

    1292 Words  | 3 Pages

    In America, protest has been used throughout history as a vehicle to change. Protests bring attention to issues that would or could be overlooked or ignored. A current protest receiving national attention in our media is the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest. The Occupy Wall Street protest, along with other Occupy branch protests are essentially ineffective protests. When compared to successful protests in the past, they are not having as much success gaining public support. There are many reasons this could be the case. There is no clearly defined goal or a specified outcome resulting from the protests. They are managing their funds inefficiently and in many cities they are creating more problems than they are solving.

    Read More

  • Leaders In The Civil Rights Movement

    3334 Words  | 7 Pages

    The movement changed the landscape of American society and opened it up to excluded groups and gave these groups a model for protest and change. It demonstrated that nonviolent protests and struggle was a viable method of social and cultural change.

    Read More

  • Civil Rights Movement Essay

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    To understand a definition, there needs to be a breakdown of the words used to describe the term. The first phrase used is “groupings of individuals”. To put this in context of a social movement, this occurs when members of society come together

    Read More

  • The Groupthink Hypothesis

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1972, Irving Janis presented a set of hypothesis that he extracted from observing small groups performing problem solving tasks; he collectively referred to these hypotheses as groupthink¹. He defined groupthink as “a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action²” A successful group brings varied ideas, collective knowledge, and focus on the task at hand. The importance of groups is to accomplish tasks that individuals can not do on their own. The Bay of Pigs, Watergate, and the Challenger disaster are all forms of failure within a group. Specifically, you can see the effect of groupthink of Americans before September 11, 2001. The thought of harm to the United States was unfathomable, but only after the attacks did they realize they were not invincible. When a solid, highly cohesive group is only concerned with maintaining agreement, they fail to see their alternatives and any other available options. When a group experiences groupthink, they may feel uninterested about a task, don't feel like they will be successful, and the group members do not challenge ideas. Stress is also a factor in the failure of groupthink. An effective group needs to have clear goals, trust, accountability, support, and training. Some indicators that groupthink may be happening are; making unethical decisions, they think they are never wrong, close-minded about situations, and ignore important information. Many things can be done to prevent groupthink from happening. One way is to make each person in the group a “critical evaluator”. The leader must ...

    Read More

  • The Social Movement

    1291 Words  | 3 Pages

    1) Name and describe the Social Movement. What is the goal of the Social Movement?

    Read More

  • the false consensus effect

    746 Words  | 2 Pages

    Research Demonstration: The False Consensus Effect In science, we emphasize systematic, careful observation as a key to overcoming the limits of other methods of acquiring knowledge. That is, we trust systematic observation more than we trust our own intuition. We can actually investigate this issue. The following description provides you with the details necessary to conduct a simple study to investigate the accuracy of human intuition. We often believe that others are more like ourselves than they really are.

    Read More

  • The Post-9/11 Globalization Era and its Aftermath

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    These protests haven’t been centralized to a single country or region but rather have appeared throughout the globe. Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria emerged in the form of the Arab Spring protests that swept across the Middle East in 2011. Labour movements in North America, economic austerity resistance in Spain, injustice protests in Greece and Israil, and the ‘YoSoy123’ movement in Mexico all sprouted around the same time(Basok, 2014). Then in late 2011 these movements seemed to have blended together and culminated in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Each of these movements share a common goal in the form of increasing the bleak economic situation that plagues the globe. Basok notes that it was the dichotomy between economic classes that motivated the movement and sparked the notorious ‘1% versus 99%’ motto. Causes for such global disparity can be traced to decisions made decades prior. Levine Marc noted in 1996 that since the early 1970’s “there has been an unprecedented surge in income inequality and a polarization of earnings in the United States”. The western middle class had been shrinking for almost four decades but at a rate that, while not

    Read More

  • The Stage of Social Movements

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    A social movement is a group of people who are organized to resist or promote a social change (Henslin, 2012). Many social movements die out over time and it may take generations for that to happen. Some like abortion have started many generations ago and are still around today with no signs of the movement ending anytime soon. Abortion has two sides: pro-life and pro-choice. This essay explains the five different stages of a social movement and the opposing sides of abortion.

    Read More

  • collective disputes

    1419 Words  | 3 Pages

    ACAS – Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service, It has all the ability to intervene in the issues of the trade union and the accounts of the organization that the trade union belongs to.

    Read More

  • Social Movement Essay

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first question was, “Discuss the four types of social movements and the features of each one. The four types of social movements are alternative social movement, redemptive social movement, reformative social movement, and revolutionary social movement. The alternative social movement is defined as, “a want to create a change in specific people’s thoughts, practices, and beliefs regarding a particular issue.” “Their goal is to encourage a small, defined change in the way a particular group of people think and act in order to solve a problem” (Carl 308). Mothers against drunk driving (MADD) are an example of an alternative social movement because it targets one behavior-- drunk driving. Through its efforts, MADD has caused tougher drunk driving laws to be enacted, and lead to changes peoples ' behavior.Now, the redemptive social movement, “focus on specific individuals, but the amount of change sough is radical, rather than limited.” A good example would include the American Civil Rights Movement which demanded full civil

    Read More

  • Globalization And Global Citizenship

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    For the first time, causing many to wonder, “What is globalization exactly, and why are the protesters so against it? “ “What are the mysterious institutions the WTO, the IMF, and the Bank- that the media keep? “ “And what could be so problematic about free

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Group Dynamics

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    Group dynamics can be defined as the interactions that influence the behavior and attitudes of individuals when they are in groups. This is very important in the areas of sociology, psychology, and communication studies.

    Read More

More about Collective Behavior

Open Document