The Psychology of Crowd Behaviour

This review describes the social identity approach to crowd behavior. Research based on the social identity approach to crowds has grown significantly in the last 20 years, both quantitatively and qualitatively. I organize the new research into three sections. Under ‘crowd situations, events, and experiences’, I consider the recent findings on crowd density behaviors, heightened emotion in crowds, mass gatherings health, and crowd events that function to strengthen group identity. The second section covers research on behavior in emergencies and how models of crowd behavior have shaped policy and practice in emergency response. The third section, ‘contentious crowds’, describes the recent research on psychological change in collective action, ‘public order’ policing, and social influence. The increased number of practical applications demonstrates that the social identity research on the psychology of crowd behavior has value in addition to the advances it has made in terms of theory.