Charles W. Tucker

Simulating Individual and Collective Action in Temporary Gatherings

Perception control systems and hierarchies of such systems are described. Perception control system theory asserts that human beings adjust their actions to control their perceptions. Purposive individuals adjust their actions to counter variable circumstances that prevent their perceptions from matching their objectives. Collective action can occur when two or more purposive individuals generate similar objectives independently, or when they do so interdependently, or when they adopt them from a third party. This explanation addresses the most characteristic feature of human behavior in temporary gatherings (crowds): alternating and vaned sequences of individual and collective action. A simulation program is described that varies up to three separate sets of control systems (seeking a destination, avoiding collisions, and seeking the path of other individuals) for each of 1 to 255 individuals constituting a gathering. The program features are illustrated with successive panels of screen prints of the development of nine different sequences of individual and collective action observed repeatedly in field research on temporary gathenngs. Theoretical, research, and practical implications are noted. An appendix descnbes program parameters. Keywords: perception, cybernetic, control systems theory, crowds, gatherings, individual action, collective action, simulation.

Simulating arcs and rings in gatherings

A theory of collective behavior must be able to account for simple and common collective phenomena such as arcs and rings. Using a computer simulator designed according to the principles of Perceptual Control Theory, based on a model how a human being, as a living control system, engages in movement alone and with others in temporary gatherings we produced a highly symmetrical ring that remotely corresponds to the non-simulated world because it is made up exclusively of individuals. When we simulated the pairs that compared to non-simulated gatherings, the outcome was an arc but was still unlike those we have observed in many temporary gatherings. When we introduced disturbances into the gatherings in the form of other simulated actors they more closely represented what we have observed in the non-simulated world of parks, plazas, states fairs and school yards as well as those at political, religious and rallies. We offer several proposals for future research.

Problems in The Study of the Stigmatized Majority a Review Essay : FIELD RESEARCH: STRATEGIES FOR A NATURAL SOCIOLOGY, Leonard Schatzman and Anselm L. Strauss, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973. 149 pp. No Price indicated

However, in spite of Pilcher’s emphasis on the union and its history of militance, he tells us little about the meaning of this radicalism today. Nothing is reported about the longshoremen’s attitude toward the governmental, military, and industrial establishment. In the absence of this material, the workers’ recognition of the radical days of the 1920s and 1930s looks merely symbolic, a myth bolstering a rather conservative