The Social Psychology of Crowds

The Social Psychology of Crowds - Ideas, Identity and Impact
The Keele Policing Academic Collaboration (KPAC) host a range of CPD events for police officers, academics and a range of other professionals. View the KPAC events calendar to find out more: bit.ly/2CGgAjJ
This lecture will focus on the nature of crowds to illustrate their importance for social theory and policy. The lecture will outline a conceptual approach for understanding the psychology that drives collective action in crowd events and highlight how Clifford’s research has helped transform understanding of ‘riots’ and football ‘hooliganism’. But beyond theory, Clifford will also address how these research contributions have been made possible through using ethnography, participant action research and knowledge co-production as primary organising concepts. In so doing, he will explore how crowd research is reclaiming a relevance for social psychology through asking powerful and sometime difficult questions, opening inter-disciplinary dialogue and cementing pathways to social and political impact.
Clifford Stott graduated from Plymouth Polytechnic with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 1988 and gained his PhD on the Intergroup Dynamics of Crowd Behaviour from the University of Exeter in 1996. He then held lectureships and Senior Lectureships at the Universities of Bath, Abertay and Liverpool before moving to the School of Law at the University of Leeds in 2013, where he became a Principal Research Fellow in Security and Justice. He took up his Chair in Social Psychology in March 2016. Since arriving at Keele he has established and is Co-Director of the University’s Research Centre the Keele Policing Academic Collaboration (KPAC). His work revolves around crowd psychology, ‘riots’ and ‘public order’ policing. He works regularly with police forces, Governments and football authorities across the world. His research has been acknowledged in policy documents on the policing of crowds issued by the Council of Europe and the European Union. His research underpins policy reforms of ‘public order’ policing in the UK, Sweden, Denmark and Australia. Reflecting the influence of his work he was awarded the 2014 ‘Celebrating Impact’ First Prize for ‘Outstanding Impact on Public Policy’ by the ESRC. In 2015 the ESRC also acknowledged his work as one of the top 50 ‘Landmark Research’ achievements of its 50-year history.

[@MessengerRising]

Talk starts at 4:20

[@dameon7106]

bro funny number haha

[@bjpcorp]

Useful information for crowds of activists! =P

[@potatokitty]

Yay I am curious ans a trusted source? I am so thankful thank you.

[@IvanGarcia-cx5jm]

The police expectation of violence (30:15) from the crowd that caused the police to act incorrectly. What about if the expectation of violence came from a history of violence? It seems that a recurring theme in this video is the crowds are good people always incapable of doing wrong on their own, while the police always messes up. I hope this video is not trying to manipulate and brainwash us.

[@Gorboduc]

Indeed lol. I'd be interested to hear his take on the peaceful protests that happened on the sixth day of the first month of this year. I suspect he'd suddenly take on a less forgiving demeanor.

[@yvonnesmith3103]

I am a individual thinker and out of the box

[@IvanGarcia-cx5jm]

In 15:00 he seems to imply that crowds spontaneously on their own will came to protest for the 14% wage gap. The 14% number and the coordination of the protests seems to indicate that the protest was influenced, driven and coordinated by a small (most likely political) group. Instead of crowd driven this look like herd behavior. I smell high political bias in the speaker of this video.

[@vladvlog9677]

A whole lot of waffle, leftist bias and poor understanding of the subject.

[@muckvix]

Too much emotion and politics for a scientific talk, IMO.

[@cliffordstott5906]

Oh well, I'm not sorry about that; the problem is that crowd psychology is fundamentally political and to ignore that is naive and I also care about that so apply passion to what I do. Most people enjoy that bt there are always a few that dislike my approach. I can live with that...

[@craigseddon4884]

@@cliffordstott5906 it was an interesting watch, I disagree with most of your reasoning although I am inclined to agree with most of your conclusion. If you are free some time I would love to do a Zoom call with you for no other reason than an intellectual joust

[@thomaspellow9437]

Too much emotion lol
Maybe he wants a perfectly rational emotionless crowd lol
*looks at BLM protests

[@MessengerRising]

@@cliffordstott5906 As a social science student I would like to know what role the social sciences plays in shaping society. We've just witnessed the British police using kettling and batons in Trafalgar Square at a peaceful lockdown protest. If we know that kettling agitates the crowd and can effectively turn them against the police then why do the police still use kettling? As I understood it kettling was seen to be bad practice for crowd control. Why are things not changing despite all we've learned about crowds? Did the police intentionally use kettling to create tension and an excuse to use force and if so who ordered this action? I don't mean to lead you or inject my own bias but from the many reports I've seen from both sides that's what it looked like to me.

[@IvanGarcia-cx5jm]

It makes me wonder if the speaker is a social scientist or a social engineer.