Collective behavior requires six conditions according to Neil Smesler: 1) structural conduciveness or surrounding conditions that enable a response, 2) structural strains like poverty that encourage collective effort, 3) a generalized belief about the situation, 4) precipitating factors to trigger a response, 5) mobilization of people to take action, and 6) failure of social controls to prevent the behavior. The 1983 radio dramatization of War of the Worlds caused mass hysteria as people who tuned in late mistook the fictional Martian invasion for real news reports and panicked without the context provided at the start.

1. Conditions for Collective
Behavior

2. Collective Behavior
• It is essentially an attempt by people to
alter their environment when they are
under conditions of uncertainty, threat or
strain (according to Neil Smesler).
• Neil Smesler argues that collective
behavior involves six basic conditions and
will only occur if all six are met:

3. Structural Conduciveness
• This term refers to the surrounding
conditions that make a particular form of
collective behavior possible in the first
place

4. Structural Strains
• Any social condition that places strain on
people – poverty, conflict, discrimination,
uncertainty about their future encourages
them to make a collective effort to relieve
the problem.

5. Generalized Belief
• To provoke collective behavior, people
must also develop some general belief
about their situation by identifying the
problem, forming their opinions about it,
and define appropriate responses.

6. Precipitating Factors
• Even if the preceding conditions are
present, collective behavior does not “just
happen.”
• Some events are necessary to trigger a
response.

7. Mobilization in Action
• Collective behavior will not occur unless
people join in the action

8. Failure of Social Control
• Social control may prevent an outburst of
collective behavior. However, social
control mechanism may be too weak to
prevent the behavior; or they may be
counterproductive and magnify the
behavior.

9. Martian Invasion of Earth
• Happened in 1983 when a radio dramatization of
H.G. Well’s novel the War of the World was
broadcast in the New York area
• Although the radio announcer had made the
fictional nature of the program clear at the
outset, people who tuned in late heard “on spot”
description of Martians wreaking havoc. They
took what they heard as fact, not fiction.

10. • The result was mass hysteria and even outright
panic, involving perhaps as many as 1 million of
the 6 million people of the broadcast
• Some people hid in their basement. Others
bundled their children in their cars and drove as
fast as they could away from the scene of the
supposed invasion. Others called their relatives
to bid farewell. Others simply prayed and waited
for the inevitable to happen.
• Crowds excitedly gathered in public places, and
fresh rumors were generated.

11. • One of the reasons why the radio
broadcast caused mass hysteria was that
“the bulletin format with comments from
supposed scientific experts and public
officials gave a certain credibility to the
event.”
• The broadcast also took place in the pre-
television era when people relied on the
radio for up-to-the minute news.