Today I read an interesting blog article on the recent London Riots and the nature of crowd psychology. Despite people’s personal opinions on the usefulness, relevance and academic standing of the subject, suddenly psychology seems really very important. If we can begin to understand why these apparently random riots took place, perhaps a solution or method of prevention could be found.
Psychologist Clifford Stott’s ideas were discussed in this article. He researches the inter-reactions between police and crowds. An interesting point is raised as to how policing in events such as these should be carried out - because the reality is many youths would not have intended to commit any real crime and were on the streetsbecause everyone else was. But suddenly police action and use of batons/crowd control made this an us vs them scenario, and the rioters are united against the police and public order.
This is the Elaborated Social Identity Model and essentially means that while you may feel no personal connection to the group of people around you (in a classroom, on a train) if you are threatened or affected as a group (be it an attack or a mere traffic-jam) you feel instantly affiliated to those around you.
While the London Riots have been labelled as the first ‘networked riots’, psychologeek is asking, did these invisible ties come fromthe world of facebook and the internet,or were they the result of a crowd of disconnected youths connecting to protect themselves from perceived threat?
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