Collective Behavior in Mass Incidents: a study of contemporary China

Mass incidents are inevitable in contemporary China and the first thing we should learn is to adopt a correct attitude towards them. Based on the three elements-activity, interaction and sentiment-of collective behaviors in 52 mass incidents in China during 2007-2011, we find that collective behavio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of contemporary China 2014-07, Vol.23 (88), p.715-735
Main Authors: Wei, Jiuchang, Zhou, Lei, Wei, Yufang, Zhao, Dingtao
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Behavior
Casualties
China
Collective Behavior
Collective behaviour
Contemporary history
Elementary education
Evaluation
Interaction
Intergroup relations
Location
Mass Behavior
Peoples Republic of China
Regression Analysis
Space
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Mass incidents are inevitable in contemporary China and the first thing we should learn is to adopt a correct attitude towards them. Based on the three elements-activity, interaction and sentiment-of collective behaviors in 52 mass incidents in China during 2007-2011, we find that collective behaviors in mass incidents show significant differences in activity, interaction and sentiment. A grade evaluation method is proposed to estimate the evolution of collective behaviors in 52 mass incidents and to classify such behaviors into five grades. Then the influence factors on the three elements are analyzed using multiple linear regression. The regression results demonstrate that the impacts of location, casualties, inner-group relations, group scale and duration on the three elements are very significant. Finally, in the light of the regression results, some implications of collective behavior in mass incidents are proposed for the relevant authorities in responding to mass incidents.
ISSN:1067-0564
1469-9400
DOI:10.1080/10670564.2013.861157