Emergent Norm Theory

An old joke runs along the following lines. Herald: “The peasants are revolting, My Lord!” Lord: “I know, quite disgusting.” Representations of crowds since at least the Middle Ages have been characterized by this kind of “fear of the masses.” Crowds were seen as dangerous, unpredictable, chaotic, threatening, and inhuman, in that they lacked the capacity for reason and restraint. Familiar phrases such as “the baying crowd” and “the herd instinct” illustrate this infrahumanization. In the 19th century, industrialization and urbanization gave the masses more chances to congregate, and scholars such as Gustave Le Bon continued to emphasize the irrational and chaotic aspects of crowd behavior. In the 20th century, influenced by the prevailing intellectual climate of humanism and the writings of Karl Marx, scholars realized that there was a method to crowds' apparent madness and that the behavior of violent and terrifying crowds is seldom entirely random. Emergent norm theory, the brainchild of the sociologists Ralph H. Turner and Lewis Killian, was one of the most important contributions in this vein.

Like many other sociologists and social psychologists—most notably their contemporary, Muzafer Sherif—Turner and Killian assumed that social behavior is driven by norms. Specifically, they suggested that in extraordinary circumstances, such as civic emergencies and certain types of crowd situations, the mundane norms that govern the course of our everyday lives no longer apply. New norms are required and are created by the crowd.

The type of crowd of most interest to Turner and Killian is the crowd that is not governed by established rules, has no predetermined leaders or leadership structure, and has no formal, prearranged mechanisms for making decisions or selecting leaders. The crowd ought to have been drawn together by a precipitating event that is the focus of the crowd members' attention, such as a flood, an earthquake, a war, a protest, a strike, or even a power cut that disables the normal mechanisms of authority.

According to Turner and Killian, a key characteristic of such a crowd is that its members share a sense of both uncertainty and urgency. The precise nature of the event that has brought the group together may not always be clear. Crucially, the ultimate outcome of the event and the crowd situation is difficult to determine. There is no agreement in advance on what the crowd is trying to achieve and how. In addition, the crowd can exist only for a limited time and has only a limited time to act. Thus when the crowd first forms, people ask each other questions like, “What's happened—was it an accident or a terrorist attack?”; “What's going to happen next?”; “What should we do?”; “What should I do?”; and “Who will act?” Turner and Killian labeled this process of investigations, questions, and rumors milling. Through the process of milling, the initial uncertainty experienced by the crowd is reduced, and a shared understanding of the situation begins to emerge.

In the next stage of the formation of emergent norms, called keynoting, individuals make positive suggestions for action. A keynote can consist of a [Page 236]verbal suggestion made to the crowd or some part of it (e.g., “Let's storm the ramparts”), or it can simply consist of a distinctive action (e.g., an individual spontaneously mounting the ramparts, setting an example for others). Keynotes are more likely to be accepted if they converge with the predispositions of a large part of the crowd. For example, if many people in the crowd are angry, aggressive keynotes are likely to be influential. Eventually, through keynoting, a dominant understanding of what is right and wrong in the situation is determined, and the urgency of the crowd is focused on a specific course of action.

...