Crowd Psychology and Crowd Management

Ivy Marshall Author

08/08/2021 Added

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This study examines the psychology of the crowd, specifically why people in a crowd become particularly violent in entertainment settings, and why people in crowds experience deindividuation.

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[00:00:01.140]Hi, my name is Ivy Marshall,
[00:00:02.670]and I'm a senior studying psychology at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:07.350]The research I've been conducting over the past several months with the guidance
[00:00:10.800]of Dr. Chelsea Witt is on crowd psychology and crowd management.
[00:00:15.510]I'd also like to acknowledge that I began my research amidst the COVID-19
[00:00:19.470]pandemic, but chose to exclude that data due to its inherent skewness,
[00:00:23.850]and instead, I focused my research within the 20th century.
[00:00:28.590]This study examines the psychology of the crowd specifically why people in the
[00:00:32.670]crowd become particularly violent in entertainment settings. Crowd psychology,
[00:00:37.200]commonly referred to as collective psychology is defined by the American
[00:00:41.940]Psychological Association as 'the mental and emotional states and
[00:00:46.590]processes characteristic of individuals
[00:00:49.890]when aggregated in such groups as audiences, crowds, mobs,
[00:00:54.510]and social movements,' it can also be referred to as crowd behavior,
[00:00:58.650]crowd mentality, or mob mentality.
[00:01:03.090]Here's some of the studies that have been conducted in the past that heavily
[00:01:06.180]influenced by research as well as the infamous Bubba Helms photo taken
[00:01:10.950]during the Detroit 1984 world series riot.
[00:01:17.580]These are some of the questions I wanted to answer in my research.
[00:01:20.790]We wanted to explore why certain events in the entertainment industry
[00:01:24.540]become more or less violent and explain why people in crowds experience
[00:01:29.200]deindividuation.
[00:01:31.140]Deindividuation is defined by the APA as 'an experiential state
[00:01:36.000]characterized by loss of self-awareness altered perceptions
[00:01:41.100]and a reduction of inner restraints that results in the performance of
[00:01:45.570]unusual and sometimes antisocial behavior.
[00:01:48.690]It can be caused by a number of factors,
[00:01:50.910]such as a sense of anonymity or submersion in a group.'
[00:01:57.720]Our method of analysis was to transfer all of the events and items from an Excel
[00:02:02.670]spreadsheet into SPSS to code and determine the effects of
[00:02:07.590]each category on the number of injuries and fatalities.
[00:02:12.660]I started collecting data by searching different keywords on Google and PsycInfo
[00:02:17.490]The data I researched was used to code and compare the events with each other.
[00:02:22.080]I categorized each event into items such as type of event, type of venue,
[00:02:26.550]presence of alcohol and drugs, presence of security, number of arrests,
[00:02:31.050]hotter or colder temperatures,
[00:02:33.000]number of people present and max capacity of the venue.
[00:02:36.870]I researched dozens of events,
[00:02:38.760]but narrowed it down to 56 to analyze all of which occurred in the 1900s
[00:02:45.330]out of these 56 events, we coded 40 of them in the analysis:
[00:02:49.770]34 sporting events and 6 concerts; 26 outdoor events,
[00:02:54.060]14 indoors; 12 in the spring,
[00:02:56.550]10 in the fall, 10 in the summer and 8 and the winter; 17 events
[00:03:01.480]in the Midwest,
[00:03:02.560]14 in the Northeast, 7 in the West and 2 in the Southeast.
[00:03:09.790]We excluded an event from the analysis
[00:03:12.220]if there was not enough information or there were no major stories written about
[00:03:16.540]it; if there were little to no injuries or arrests reported;
[00:03:20.800]if there were only one or two fans who became violent or the violence was kept
[00:03:24.700]among the athletes;
[00:03:26.110]or if a game was played outside the US and it was not US fans who instigated
[00:03:30.880]the violence.
[00:03:33.940]How we coded our information into SPSS: First,
[00:03:37.390]we coded and analyzed the effect of type of entertainment event with the number
[00:03:41.830]of injuries, then the type of entertainment event with the number of fatalities.
[00:03:46.660]Second, we analyzed the effect of venue type,
[00:03:49.930]whether indoors or outdoors on a number of injuries,
[00:03:53.290]then on the number of fatalities. Third,
[00:03:55.930]we analyzed the number of injuries with: whether there was a rival team,
[00:04:00.310]presence of alcohol, presence of drugs, amount of security, low or high
[00:04:04.930]temperatures, if there was a contingency plan in place,
[00:04:08.590]number of people present, max capacity of the venue, type of sport
[00:04:13.510]and region of the US.
[00:04:18.197]Our results: What did we find? Feel free to pause this video at any time to read the results.
[00:04:25.450]There were mixed results when analyzing the effect of type of event on the
[00:04:29.170]number of injuries.
[00:04:30.730]Since we didn't assume homogeneity our statistical P value was greater than
[00:04:35.140]0.05. However,
[00:04:36.850]we had a relatively large effect size given that the means were so far apart.
[00:04:41.500]Therefore, we tentatively conclude that more injuries occurred at concerts than
[00:04:45.850]sporting events.
[00:04:47.500]There were significantly more fatalities at indoor venues than outdoor venues.
[00:04:52.660]The larger the maximum capacity of a venue,
[00:04:55.630]the more injuries occurred, possibly due to the fact it is in a
[00:05:00.460]larger space with more people, and there may be a heightened sense of panic,
[00:05:05.620]especially if something goes wrong.
[00:05:08.860]A Tukey post-hoc test revealed that there were more fatalities in
[00:05:13.390]basketball compared to those in baseball or football.
[00:05:19.850]There were no significant effects in injuries based on whether the
[00:05:24.680]event was indoors or outdoors, if a game was against a rival team,
[00:05:29.210]when alcohol was present, if a contingency plan was in place,
[00:05:33.630]number of people present, type of sport,
[00:05:36.890]and where in the US the event took place.
[00:05:40.670]There were marginally significant effects in injuries based on drug
[00:05:45.410]influence and temperatures. Events that involved drugs had more injuries than
[00:05:50.330]those that did not mention drug use.
[00:05:52.790]More injuries occurred on days when the temperature was in the 50s and above
[00:05:57.200]compared to days when the temperature was in the 40s and below.
[00:06:01.820]The presence of security had no effect on number of injuries.
[00:06:06.620]A possible issue with these results could be due to the low sample sizes
[00:06:11.510]of rival teams and lack of alcohol and drug presence.
[00:06:16.820]There were no significant effects in fatalities based on whether it was a
[00:06:21.230]sporting event or concert, presence of alcohol or drugs,
[00:06:24.890]presence of security, temperature,
[00:06:27.680]and where in the US the event took place.
[00:06:30.890]Having a contingency plan in place,
[00:06:33.350]the number of people present, and max capacity had no effect on number of
[00:06:37.520]fatalities.
[00:06:39.290]No fatalities occurred when there were rival teams and the sample size was only
[00:06:43.610]7, so we did not compare the effect of rivalry on fatalities.
[00:06:49.100]Some of the possible issues with these results could be due to the low sample
[00:06:53.630]size of concerts, again, the lack of alcohol and drug presence,
[00:06:58.130]no rival team data,
[00:06:59.900]and no correlation between the number of people present and max capacity
[00:07:04.790]with fatalities*.
[00:07:08.030]Now let's briefly discuss our results. According to my research,
[00:07:12.020]concerts tend to have a higher injury rate,
[00:07:14.780]indoor venues tend to have a higher fatality rate, venues with a larger
[00:07:19.640]maximum capacity tend to result in more injuries,
[00:07:23.030]and basketball has a higher rate of fatalities when compared to baseball and
[00:07:28.010]football. Based on my findings,
[00:07:30.860]a rock concert / basketball game mashup at an indoor
[00:07:35.450]venue with approximately 40,000 or more seats would
[00:07:40.040]potentially be the most fatal event to attend if just
[00:07:44.930]one thing goes awry but I think it still sounds like a fun time.
[00:07:52.200]There were several limitations to researching details of events in which violence,
[00:07:56.600]riots, invading the field or storming the court occurred.
[00:08:00.410]There's a lot of missing data,
[00:08:02.090]which could be a result of the lack of record keeping of these types of
[00:08:06.470]incidents in the early 1900s or the shame that comes with the
[00:08:10.850]negligence of properly organizing an event or several other various reasons.
[00:08:16.490]Additional limitations of our study include: lack of a trustworthy database with
[00:08:21.110]established stats,
[00:08:22.760]only being able to find ticket prices in some articles or on eBay,
[00:08:27.680]either from that exact event or similar events around that timeframe.
[00:08:32.490]There were likely much higher property damage costs than predicted or reported.
[00:08:37.730]Our analysis only focused on 20th century events.
[00:08:41.810]Small sample sizes may explain some discrepancies in the analysis.
[00:08:47.450]And there weren't significant numbers of fatalities because we didn't use many
[00:08:51.590]events with significant fatalities.
[00:08:54.930]So my suggestion for future research would be to gather more events and collect
[00:08:59.610]more accurate information so to have larger sample sizes,
[00:09:03.630]which will give you more accurate results,
[00:09:09.020]Lastly, I would like to thank UCARE for funding and giving me this opportunity in
[00:09:13.190]research, as well as holding the virtual events over the summer. And of course,
[00:09:17.660]thank you to my advisor, Dr.
[00:09:19.460]Witt for asking me about my interests in the psych field and encouraging me to
[00:09:24.410]work hard and continue to pursue this topic of research even after this year's
[00:09:29.240]summer symposium. And thank you for watching my presentation.

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Crowd Psychology and Crowd Management

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