How Can the Psychology of Crowd Behaviour Contribute to Effective Crowd Management? Discuss with Reference to Either a Mass Emergency or a Protest Demonstration.
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A crowd is a large number of people gathered together and packed quite tightly. Crowd management is how authorities attempt to manage crowds effectively trying to keep a sense of order amongst the people without any hassle. The term crowd management is used as opposed to crowd control as taking the approach to control a crowd has the potential to go wrong and create public disorder, as no one likes to be controlled as such. Crowds can be seen as either positive or negative. A positive crowd could be associated with celebrations, coming together, enjoying an event collectively and generally having a good atmosphere. A negative crowd is quite stressed in a situation such as rush hour, and busy shopping centres and may often be associated with danger. With reference to the title, I will be discussing a situation which includes a negative crowd.
When trying to manage a crowd in a situation such as a protest, although not everyone will necessarily be there for the same reason, the crowd is treated as one and therefore the crowd may end up conforming to behaviour that is somewhat expected of them. This can also happen when one person or a small group of people starts to behave irrationally; the behaviour can cause irritation amongst others and therefore cause the irrational behaviour to spread fast Le Bon (1895/1947).
It is generally quite difficult to collect data about crowds and find reasons for their behaviour, as when trying to research, people may not want to discuss the situation if everything is really hectic. With the use of technology and video footage, it is becoming increasingly easier to study crowds through natural observation, however, whilst you can study how individuals within a crowd are behaving, you cannot establish why.
The situation I have chosen to discuss is a concert put on by the English rock band, The Who on 3rd December 1979 at the Coliseum in Cincinnati. The concert has been referred to as a stampede as the night turned out to be a general disaster, which resulted in eleven deaths and many more injuries. Johnson (1987) managed to collect some primary and secondary data consisting of interviews and statements from audience members (primary) and access to a number of police files, which include various statements from officers, patrons, audience members, staff at the venue, private security guards and patrons who were present at a city council hearing (secondary).
The stampede was due to people desperately trying to get into the arena to catch the start of the concert. Contributing factors to this were the fact that the seating was unreserved so people wanted the best seats they could get and also not many doors were opened to let people in and when they were opened, they opened quite late. This created a tightly packed crowd of people outside the doors before they were opened, people could not move and police officers patrolling the area were unable to see any problems that were occurring within the crowd (Stevens, 1979), so evidently the problems started long before the concert began and the doors opened. The media portrayed the event as a violent mad mob and a form of mass panic, which can be subcategorized into acquisitive panic (Brown 1965), which is created when people want something. However, Johnsons findings suggest otherwise. There was plenty of evidence collected that implied people were actually trying to help each other if they could and then when they did not help it was because they were physically unable to. The apparent findings of the lack of mass panic can also be supported by Dr John Drury who states that:
“Despite its common-sense appeal, reviews of the literature on mass emergency events find little evidence for the existence of mass panic. Whether