Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Mass Behavior”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 415 records · Page 23Linked to original sources
PubMed2005

Traumatic death from rival gang violence in Rivers State, Nigeria.

A prospective autopsy study in Rivers State, Nigeria, was undertaken to evaluate the patterns of death as a result of rival gang clashes and to highlight the menace of rival gang violence. Between 1 January 1999 and 31 December 2003 medico-legally autopsied bodies in Rivers State, where death was the result of gang violence, were studied after being served with the coroner's form. In all cases, standard autopsy procedures were adopted and reports were issued. A total of 58 bodies were autopsied for the study. Three (5.2%) were females and 55 (94.8%) were males, giving a female to male ratio of 1:18.3. The age group of 10-29 years recorded the highest frequency of death (65.6%) with a peak in the age group 20-29 years (39.7%). Gang violence and politically motivated mob action were the most common precipitating factors (60.3% and 20.7% respectively). Firearms (41.4%) was the most common method applied for the killing. Death was more common in the rural areas of Rivers State. Gang clashes, volatile political rallies, illegal drug peddling and illegal oil bunkering should be banned and stringent laws be passed. Such laws should also cover gun handling and should be enforced.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Metal-binding proteins as metal pollution indicators.

The fact that metal-binding proteins are a consequence of elevated metal concentration in organisms is well known. What has been overlooked is that the presence of these proteins provides a unique opportunity to reformulate the criteria of metal pollution. The detoxification effect of metal-binding proteins in animals from polluted areas has been cited, but there have been only very few studies relating metal-binding proteins to pollution. This lack is due partly to the design of most experiments, which were aimed at isolation of metal-binding proteins and hence were of too short duration to allow for correlation to adverse physiological effects on the organism. In this study metal-binding proteins were isolated and characterized from five different marine animals (rock lobster, Jasus lalandii; hermit crab, Diogenes brevirostris; sandshrimp, Palaemon pacificus; black mussel, Choromytilus meridionalis; and limpet, Patella granularis). These animals were kept under identical metal-enriched conditions, hence eliminating differences in method and seasons. The study animals belonged to different phyla; varied in size, mass, age, behavior, food requirements and life stages; and accumulated metals at different rates. It is possible to link unseasonal moulting in crustacea, a known physiological effect due to a metal-enriched environment, to the production of the metal-binding protein without evidence of obvious metal body burden. Thus a new concept of pollution is defined: the presence of metal-binding proteins confirms toxic metal pollution. This concept was then tested under field conditions in the whelk Bullia digitalis and in metal-enriched grass.

Animals↗
PubMed1999

Collective memories, political violence and mental health in Northern Ireland.

In 1987 one of the most salient incidents in Northern Ireland, involving mass casualties, occurred when a bomb exploded in a building near the war memorial in the centre of Enniskillen. A total of 63 people were injured and 11 were killed. The main aim of the present study was to investigate how salient this event was in present day Enniskillen and in a neighbouring town, known here as Lowtown, some 8 years after the original incident. The second aim was to examine how memories of that particular bomb are related to current psychological well-being. Based on interviews with a quota sample of 282 people it was found that relatively few people (68) included the Enniskillen bomb when asked to mention two Northern Irish events or changes that had taken place over the past 50 years that 'come to mind as important to you'. The majority of those who did mention the Enniskillen bomb came from Enniskillen and were Protestants. In addition, Protestants who mentioned the bomb and those respondents who lived in Lowtown and mentioned the bomb scored at a significantly higher level on the General Health Questionnaire (indicating poorer mental health).

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2000

Collective action and psychological change: the emergence of new social identities.

The study comprises an analysis of processes of psychological change among participants at an environmental protest. A participant observation study found evidence of a radicalized self concept among a number of crowd members, and indicates a link between radicalization, an asymmetry of categorical representations between protesters and the police, and the subsequent interaction premised on these divergent representations. The analysis supports an elaborated social identity model of crowd behaviour (Reicher, 1996, 1997a, 1997b; Stott & Reicher, 1998). It is argued that, in order to account for both social determination and social change in collective behaviour, it is necessary to analyse crowd events as developing interactions between groups. Where crowd members hold a different understanding of their social position to that held by an out-group (e.g. the police) and where the out-group has the power to treat crowd members in terms of its understandings, then those members who act on the basis of one understanding of their social relations find themselves in an unexpected and novel set of social relations. This then provides the basis for a series of changes, including the self-understanding of crowd members.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2001

'Hooligans' abroad? Inter-group dynamics, social identity and participation in collective 'disorder' at the 1998 World Cup Finals.

During the 1998 Football World Cup Finals in France, English supporters were, once again, involved in major incidents of collective 'disorder'. Explanations for these incidents concentrated on the conflictual norms held by 'hooligans'. In contrast, Scottish supporters attending the tournament displayed norms of non-violence, explained by the popular press in terms of the absence of 'hooligans'. This study challenges this tendency to explain the presence or absence of 'disorder' in the context of football solely in terms of the presence or absence of 'hooligan' fans. Using data obtained from an ethnographic study of both Scottish and English supporters attending the tournament (N = 121), we examine the processes through which ordinarily 'peaceful' supporters would or would not become involved in collective conflict. In line with the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM) of crowd behaviour, the analysis highlights the role of the intergroup context. Where out-group activity was understood as illegitimate in in-group terms, in-group members redefined their identity such that violent action toward out-group members came to be understood as legitimate. By contrast, where there was no out-group hostility, in-group members defined themselves through an explicit contrast with the 'hooligan' supporters of rival teams. This analysis represents an advance on previous studies of crowd behaviour by demonstrating how the ESIM can account for not only the presence, but also the absence, of collective 'disorder'.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

How the past weighs on the present: social representations of history and their role in identity politics.

Socially shared representations of history have been important in creating, maintaining and changing a people's identity. Their management and negotiation are central to interethnic and international relations. We present a narrative framework to represent how collectively significant events become (selectively) incorporated in social representations that enable positioning of ethnic, national and supranational identities. This perspective creates diachronic (temporal) links between the functional (e.g. realistic conflict theory), social identity, and cognitive perspectives on intergroup relations. The charters embedded in these representations condition nations with similar interests to adopt different political stances in dealing with current events, and can influence the perceived stability and legitimacy of social orders. They are also instrumental in determining social identity strategies for reacting to negative social comparisons, and can influence the relationships between national and ethnic identities.

Culture↗
PubMed2006

A study of the factors that influence how senior officers police crowd events: on SIDE outside the laboratory.

This paper fits into the SIDE perspective (Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995; Postmes, Spears, Lea, & Reicher, 2000), which emphasises the importance of integrating the cognitive and strategic dimensions of group processes. Our study examines the decisions made by senior police officers during a simulation exercise of a crowd event. The analysis shows, firstly, that officers are deeply concerned about their accountability to a variety of audiences, both internal and external to the police force. Second, these different audiences pressure them to act in different, and sometimes contradictory, ways. What counts, then, is the overall balance between accountability concerns. Third, this balance - and, with it, police perceptions and decisions - alters in the course of an event. More specifically, with escalating conflict, the balance of accountability concerns moves increasingly in the direction of undifferentiated intervention against crowd members. In discussion, we consider both the theoretical implications of this analysis for research on group processes (in particular the importance of accountability issues once one moves beyond the laboratory and deals with groups that have a past and future and in which membership is more than simply an act of choice) and the practical implications in terms of crowd policing.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Sanctioned social violence: A psychoanalytic view--part I.

This paper is the first of a series of two that present an effort to systematize the application of psychoanalytic theory of group processes to the outbreak of massive violence. It explores the origins and social amplification of primitive aggression by means of group psychology and mass psychology, and the combined influences of the regressive pull of ideologies, the personality features of social and political leadership, and the triggering impact of historical trauma and social crises. The paper describes a spectrum of narcissistic-paranoid mechanisms that provide a common matrix for the analysis of those aspects of social psychology that co-determine socially sanctioned violence.

Aggression↗
PubMed2005

Understanding mass panic and other collective responses to threat and disaster.

While mass panic (and/or violence) and self-preservation are often assumed to be the natural response to physical danger and perceived entrapment, the literature indicates that expressions of mutual aid are common and often predominate, and collective flight may be so delayed that survival is threatened. In fact, the typical response to a variety of threats and disasters is not to flee but to seek the proximity of familiar persons and places; moreover, separation from attachment figures is a greater stressor than physical danger. Such observations can be explained by an alternative "social attachment" model that recognizes the fundamentally gregarious nature of human beings and the primacy of attachments. In the relatively rare instances where flight occurs, the latter can be understood as one aspect of a more general affiliative response that involves escaping from certain situations and moving toward other situations that are perceived as familiar but which may not necessarily be objectively safe. The occurrence of flight-and-affiliation depends mainly on the social context and especially the whereabouts of familiar persons (i.e., attachment figures); their physical presence has a calming effect and reduces the probability of flight-and-affiliation, while their absence has the opposite effect. Combining the factors of perceived physical danger and the location of attachment figures results in a four-fold typology that encompasses a wide spectrum of collective responses to threat and disaster. Implications of the model for predicting community responses to terrorist attacks and/or use of weapons of mass destruction are briefly discussed.

Disasters↗
PubMed2002

Mass suicide: historical and psychodynamic considerations.

Mass suicide can be defined as the simultaneous suicide of all the members of a social group and is closely linked to the human dimension of existence, although the social and cultural context may vary. In fact, the term mass suicide can also be used to describe situations in which a particular population has reacted to oppression by denying all normal activities of sustenance, with the intention of bringing about a traumatic metamorphosis in a cultural context (colonization, exploitation by other populations), thus transforming a catastrophe in which a passive role is played into one constructed actively. Therefore, mass suicides can be subdivided into two categories: (a) hetero-induced, typical of defeated and colonized populations forced to escape from a reality that does not acknowledge their human dignity and (b) self-induced, in which the motivation is related to a distorted evaluation of reality, without there being either an intolerable situation or a real risk of death. The mass suicides that have taken place in the last 20 years are all related to the establishment of religious sects; the mystic delirium created within the sect leads to the self-destruction of the group as being interpreted as an act of self-assertiveness.

History, 17th Century↗
PubMed1989

Two episodes of acute illness in a machine shop.

Following an explosion in a machine shop and temporary plant closure, on the day the plant returned to full operations a degreaser malfunctioned. Workers in the assembly room were exposed to trichloroethylene levels later estimated to have exceeded 220 ppm (OSHA PEL 100 ppm). The plant was evacuated and the degreaser taken out of operation. Blood testing for carbon monoxide (CO) on five employees found carboxyhemoglobin levels in excess of normal. The plant reopened the following morning. Over the next two weeks, 15 employees were seen by the plant nurses for similar complaints; although all returned to work, their carboxyhemoglobin levels, later found to be inaccurate, were reported by a local medical clinic to range from 13.7 to 20.0 percent. At the end of the second week, another outbreak of illness occurred, but carboxyhemoglobin, trichloroethylene, fluorocarbons, and methylene chloride were not elevated in all 17 persons tested; plant-wide monitoring for CO found no elevated levels. During the first outbreak of illness, cases were 2.26 times as likely to have entered the assembly room as noncases. During the second outbreak, cases were no more likely than noncases to have entered the assembly room. We believe the explosion, earlier toxic exposures and illness, and the misleading blood test results led to plant-wide anxiety which culminated in a collective stress reaction and the second outbreak. An open meeting with all employees, informing them of our findings, provided reassurance and no further episodes of illness occurred in this workforce.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1989

Suicide: the role of the media.

Studies addressing the issue of media reporting of suicide and subsequent suicide are reviewed. The majority demonstrate a statistically significant association between the amount of such reporting and ensuing increases in suicide. Restraint is clearly indicated. The media could assist by publicising alternative coping mechanisms, rather than "normalizing" suicidal behaviour by reporting it.

Humans↗