Beyond contagion: Social identity processes in involuntary social influence

How and why do behaviours spread from person to person? In particular, how does aggression and violent behaviour spread? When, as in 2011, riots began in London, why did they then occur in Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool? One of the most common ways of addressing such issues is through the notion of 'contagion'. The core idea is that, particularly in crowds, mere exposure to the behaviour of others leads observers to behave in the same way. 'Contagion' is now used to explain everything from 'basic' responses such as smiling and yawning (where the mere act of witnessing someone yawn or smile can invoke the same response in another) to complex phenomena like the behaviour of financial markets and, of course, rioting. What is more, laboratory experiments on the 'contagion' of simple responses (such as yawning) serve to underpin the plausibility of 'contagion' accounts as applied to complex phenomena (such as rioting).
Despite this widespread acceptance, the 'contagion' account has major problems in explaining the spread of behaviours. In particular, there are boundaries to such spread. If men smile at a sexist joke, will feminists also smile in response to the men's smiles? If people riot in one town, why is it that they also riot in some towns but not others? For example, in 2011, disturbances spread from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool but they did not spread to Sheffield, Leeds or Glasgow.
'Contagion' explanations cannot answer such questions because they assume that transmission is automatic. They do not take account of the social relations between the transmitter and receiver. We propose a new account of behavioural transmission based on the social identity approach in social psychology. This suggests that influence processes are limited by group boundaries and group content: we are more influenced by ingroup members than by outgroup members, and we are more influenced by that which is consonant with rather than contradictory to group norms. The social identity approach is therefore ideally suited to explaining the social limits to influence, both for 'basic' phenomena and rioting.
In order to advance both theoretical understanding and practical interventions, our research will develop a social identity analysis of transmission processes at multiple levels. Accordingly, the aims and objectives of this research project are as follows:
First, we will conduct a series of experimental studies on 'basic' behaviours (yawning, itching) to examine whether the effects of being exposed to a behaviour depend on observers and actors being fellow ingroup members. We will also examine 'complex' behaviours (aggression and rioting) to see if (1) observers are more influenced when the actors are ingroup members; (2) observers are more influenced by the responses of other observers when these are also ingroup members; (3) willingness to copy others depends upon whether their behaviour is consonant with observer group norms. Second, we will examine the spread of urban disorder during the 2011 English riots. We have been granted special access to the full data-set from the Guardian/LSE 'Reading the Riots' study (270 interviews with participants carried out immediately following the events). This, along with other secondary sources (such as detailed crime figures), will allow us to examine the extent to which the spread of these riots was linked to a sense of shared identity with those who had rioted previously (that is, those who rioted 'saw themselves' in those who rioted before them, and those who lacked such a sense were less likely to riot). Third, we will use our findings to generate a wider debate about the nature of psychological transmission and the practicalities of addressing them. Activities will include workshops which will bring together researchers, practitioners (e.g., the police) and policy-makers in local and national government to address how we can mitigate against the spread of riots and violence.

In addition to academic beneficiaries, there are two types of stakeholder in this project: government and professional organizations concerned with the spread of violence; and the general public
1. Government and professional organizations concerned with the spread of violence
The issue of the spread of violence is of concern to National and Local Government, to a range of general Government agencies (such as the military and the police) and also to a number of specialist organizations such as Glasgow's Violence Reduction Unit. Our work will be of relevance to such organisations in two ways. First, we will be in a position to explain the processes governing the spread of violence within particular events and articulate in clear terms how such factors can best be managed to avoid conflict and 'disorder'. Specifically, where we find that 'contagion' cannot explain the spread of conflict and that conflict is better accounted for through a combination of identity-based influence and relations with those in authority - particularly the police - we will point to the ways in which the actions of those in authority may contribute to the spread of violence and hence how they can avoid being a contributory factor. Second, we will provide for a better understanding of the factors which make it more or less likely that violence will spread between events to particular areas and hence allow for improved preparedness should rioting begin elsewhere. Such understandings will be particularly important for local authorities and policing organisations in determining how to invest increasingly limited funds in order to maintain resilience. Overall, we will contribute to a more reflexive approach to collective violence, which does not pathologise those involved from the outset (an approach which, hitherto, has been dominant - see Reicher & Stott, 2011) but rather examines the meaningful types of interaction between authorities and specific communities and how such dynamics may play important roles in the production and avoidance of conflict. We have unprecedented contacts with groups in all of the above-mentioned categories and strong infrastructures underpinning knowledge exchange with policing organisations. Drury and Reicher are members of government committees dealing with the behaviour of crowds in emergencies; Stott has excellent links with UK and international police agencies, an ESRC national impact award for this work and lectures at police academies across the globe; Reicher lectures regularly to the UK Defence Academy and has worked with the Glasgow Violence Reduction Unit. As detailed in the Pathways to Impact document, we will draw on these links in order to feed our findings into the various agencies to achieve change.
2. General Public
The notion of collective contagion (and hence crowd irrationality and mindlessness) is one of the few areas where ideas from psychology that has impacted public (mis)understanding of important social phenomena. All these assumptions are widely used in media coverage of collective violence in general and were common in the 2011 UK riots in particular (Reicher & Stott, 2011). Our work will help challenge these assumptions. In criticizing contagion as a concept, we will provide a space for less pathologizing alternative discourses to emerge and develop. Our work will therefore contribute towards a more informed discussion of the roots of collective disorder and hence to most effective responses to such disorder: what is the most appropriate balance between responses that prioritise punitive actions towards those who participated and responses that address the underlying causes of participation? A balanced debate clearly depends upon a more balanced understanding of the phenomena themselves. Public discourse will therefore benefit through stimulating and enriched public discussion. In this way, our work is of importance both at the level of individual understanding and of societal well-being.