On the Social Psychology of Flash Mobbing

""Are you with the mob?" whispered one anxious first-timer,
only to be shushed with a knowing nod and wink,
followed by a nervous giggle."
- Flash mobs: A new social phenomenon?
(Hewitt, 2003)

Preamble

I just had a call from Claire at The Canberra Times who was looking for a social psychologist to discuss flash mobbing. Apparently no other psychologists would talk with her - the topic was a bit too new/novel? (Isn't that what academics are for, at least in part - to respond to new phenomena? PS It turns out it isn't even that new - it's been around for 4 years!)

Claire said she was recording our conversation and, when prompted, indicated she could well quote from it. However, she refused my request to be shown any quoted text to be published so that I could authorise it. Apparently its normal journalistic practice not to check with sources before publishing from interviews. So I participated with some caution - the topic seemed reasonably benign and intrigued me. I was also in the middle of preparing social psychology lectures so had plenty of possibly related ideas floating around in my head. Claire also assured me that it didn't matter if I didn't know what flash mobbing was.

Anyway, after our chat, I twittered to learn more (Twitter is my new research tool), got some further helpful suggestions, and since I'd far rather quote myself than have someone else potentially misquote me, I figured I'd blog my initial thoughts on the social psychology of flash mobbing...

What is flash mobbing?

Imagine that you are in a public place when suddenly a large crowd turns up (seemingly spontaneously), performs some kind of out-of-the-ordinary behaviour, and then disappears... well you might just have witnessed flash mobbing!

Flash mobbing involves a temporary group of people getting together in a predetermined location to perform a brief action, and then dissipating. Just for kicks. Yup, that's the idea. Or as has been described by CNN, flash mobbing is where "jokers gather en masse at a moment's notice, perform an inane activity and then disperse quickly".

Inherent in these definitions it seems are at least the following criteria or characteristics:

• relative spontaneity (i.e., rapidness of conception to action is valued)
  
• parsimonius organisation (i.e., poetic simplicity is valued)
  
• benigness (i.e., the event and its consequences are frivolous, fun, and quirky)
• critical mass matters; size doesn't (i.e., any collection of people with a simple social contract can perform a flash mob)
• virality (i.e., replicability and scalability)
  

Here's some examples of flash mob incidents:

• 100 people who don't know each other turn up in the middle of the town square, have a big flash mob pillow fight, and then go home, never to associated together as a group again.
• 4000 clubbers wearing mp3 players danced through the rush hour at Victoria station (Britain's biggest flash mob stunt which also seems to have helped to spawn the notion of "mobile clubbing").
• 40 people in the middle of a busy street took out their mobile phones and shouted, "yes, yes!" and then applauded.
• 100+ people pretending to members of a commune arrived at Macy's rug department and closely examined a very expensive item, explaining that they were shopping for a "love rug."
  

Variations of flash mobbing

The term flash mobbing was coined in 2003. There are several variations and related manifestations of flash mobbing phenomena, e.g.,

• Smart Mob is apparently a more generic term coined by Howard Rheingold which refers to a form of self-structuring technology-mediated social organisation which engaged in intelligent "emergent behavior."; mass media, however, appears to be more fixated on flash mobs
• Reality TV shows sometimes 'trick' members of the public by creating a temporary crowd (e.g., 100 person flash mob chasing people) - this is (debatably) a specific example of a flash mob
• Guerilla Gardening in which groups (usually environmentalists) radically transform a public space by gathering and landscaping/planting, often overnight.
• Team Buying (or 'Tuangou') in which people who wish to purchase an item from a particular store find each other on the internet and then agree to turn up at the store at a specific day/time and bargain/demand a collective discount for their bulk purchse (becoming popular in China)
• Culture Jamming, whilst not necessarily a form of flash mobbing, nevertheless seems to represent an element of flash mobbing which is often to make some sort of curious social statement by intentionally behaviour out of the norm and thereby drawing our attention to social assumptions and normative behaviour.
• Critical Mass has been conducting cycling-related flash mobs since 1992 in which people "take back the streets" using their bikes and other forms of human-powered wheeled transport
• Street Theatre, Psychodrama and other forms of participatory theatre and performance art also seem to have some parallels and intersections with flash mobbing. Perhaps flash mobbing is just another form of interactive street theatre?
• Political and Economic Flashmobbing also looms on the horizon. To date, flash mobbing has been relatively benign, but Andrew Read called me to point out that there is real potential, for example, for flash mobs to collectively buy or sell in such a way as to significantly disrupt financial markets. Andrew pointed out that this occurred as early as the 1920's. Indeed we might stop to consider then whether the 2005 Cronulla Riots and the monks marching in Burma as political protest (2007) are examples of more serious forms of flash mobbing.

Why flash mob?

Given that a "need to belong" and be part of groups has been deeply bred into most animals and particularly human beings during our evolution, it is perhaps no surprise that people continue to seek group experiences, despite (or perhaps because of) societal fragmentations.

Perhaps with the breakdown in traditional groupings (such as sport on a Saturday afternoon), we are seeing an increase in semi-random, emergent groupings. Undoubtedly the spontaneity and creativity is also fuelled by internet and mobile phones which facilitates quick communication and networking. Some flash mobbers use SMS, some use email, some use Facebook, and some use slips of paper handed out, etc.

Still, why do it?

Crowd behaviour from a social psychological point of view is generally seen as arising from deindividuation. Groups are also inclined to polarise and become more extreme in their beliefs/actions over time. As a result flash mobbers may seek more extreme acts as they go on. Risky shift refers to this notion of groups taking on more risky or daring goals than individuals would on their own.

Deindividuation also means that individuals tend to adopt a 'group mind' whereby they tend to become more focused on the group goal and less on their own individual interests. By acting as a group, there is a also diffusion of responsibility. It's difficult to hold an individual accountable and make them identifiable when an act was performed by a collective.

This is my first take on the social psychology of flash mobbing. I'm interested in any other ideas or leads people have. And if you want to go flash mobbing yourself, search Facebook for a group in your local area (e.g., the London group has 8000 members).

Future directions?

Some questions/tasks for the future to consider:

• Explore further the principle of simplicity of design - is it a criteria or just a characteristic?
  
• Is flash mobbing necessarily benign? We could do with more definitional and taxonomic work on clarifying the meaning of flash mobbing and its variants. Can flash mobbing be political? Or does it then become something else?
  
• Need to read Howard Rheingold on smart mobs - his name keeps cropping up as having conducted the most substantial academic and practical work around the broader phenomenon of smart mobs. Technology-facilitated, intelligent, emergent networks are a phenomenon it would seem worthy of further investigation.
• Connect this with outdoor education, e.g., add flash mobbing as an example application of Technology and the Outdoors: Some Experiential Possibilities. Also connect flash mobbing with common adventure.
• Join some smart mob and flash mob groups. Do some mobs. Create some mobs. Reflect on those mobs.
  

Further information

• The short life of flash mobs (interview with Bill Wasik, flash mob founder)
• Flash mob (Google Scholar Search)
• Flash mob (Youtube Search)
• Flash mob (Bookmarks)

Discussions

• Flash mobbing (Teach & Learn Online)