herd behavior

Examples of herd behavior in the following topics:

• Controlling the Behaviors of Group Members

  • The behavior of group members can be controlled indirectly through group polarization, groupthink, and herd behavior.
  • The importance of group polarization is significant as it helps explain group behavior in a variety of real-life situations.
  • Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction.
  • The term pertains to the behavior of animals in herds, flocks and schools, and to human conduct during activities such as stock market bubbles and crashes, street demonstrations, sporting events, religious gatherings, episodes of mob violence and everyday decision-making, judgment and opinion-forming.
  • Give examples of group polarization, groupthink and herd behavior in real life

• Panic

  • Architects and city planners try to accommodate the symptoms of panic, such as herd behavior, during design and planning, often using simulations to determine the best way to lead people to a safe exit.

• Riots

  • While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are typically chaotic and exhibit herd-like behavior.

• Social Change

  • These diverse actions fall within the area sociologists call collective behavior.
  • While there is debate over what should be included under the label of "collective behavior" among sociologists today, often included are additional behaviors like: rumors, riots, and fads.
  • Collective behavior can actually change elements of society.
  • This is the component of collective behavior known as "social movements. "
  • While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are typically chaotic and exhibit herd-like behavior.

• Species Distribution

  • Patterns are often characteristic of a particular species; they depend on local environmental conditions and the species' growth characteristics (as for plants) or behavior (as for animals).
  • Clumped dispersion is seen in plants that drop their seeds straight to the ground, such as oak trees, or animals that live in groups, such as schools of fish or herds of elephants.

• The Nomadic Tribes of Arabia

  • Pastoralists depend on their small herds of goats, sheep, camels, horses, or other animals for meat, milk, cheese, blood, fur/wool, and other sustenance.
  • Each member of the family had a specific role in taking care of the animals, from guarding the herd to making cheese from milk.
  • Tribes migrated seasonally to reach resources for their herds of sheep, goats, and camels.
  • Each member of the family had a specific role in taking care of the animals, from guarding the herd to making cheese from milk.

• The Decimation of the Great Bison Herds and the Fight for the Black Hills

  • The rise of the cattle industry and the cowboy is directly tied to the demise of the huge herds of buffalo which used to populate the US.
  • Once numbering over 25 million on the Great Plains, the grass-eating herds were a vital resource animal for the Plains Indians, providing food, hides for clothing and shelter, and bones for implements.
  • Loss of habitat, disease, and over-hunting steadily reduced the herds through the 19th century, bringing the species to the point of near extinction.

• Range Wars

  • The Pleasant Valley War was commonly thought to be an Arizona sheep war between two feuding families, the cattle-herding Grahams and the sheep-herding Tewksburys.

• Honor and Violence

  • Herds, unlike crops, were vulnerable to theft because they were mobile and there was little in the way of a government with the practical ability to enforce property rights in the animals.
  • Developing a reputation for retribution against those who stole herd animals was one way to discourage theft.
  • These social scientists compare the culture of honor found in the Southern United States to similar cultural values found in other subsistence economies dependent upon herding and places with weak governments.

• Great Basin Culture

  • The peoples of the Great Basin area required ease of mobility to follow bison herds and gather seasonally available food supplies.
  • Two Paiute prophets, Wodziwob and Wovoka, introduced the Ghost Dance as a means to commune with departed loved ones and bring renewals of buffalo herds and precontact lifeways.