Sociology is the systematic study of society and social interaction. In order to carry out their studies, sociologists identify cultural patterns and social forces and determine how they affect individuals and groups. They also develop ways to apply their findings to the real world.
Concerts, sports games, and political rallies can have very large crowds. When you
attend one of these events, you may know only the people you came with. Yet you
may experience a feeling of connection to the group. You are one of the crowds. You
cheer and applaud when everyone else does. You boo and yell alongside them. You
move out of the way when someone needs to get by, and you say “excuse me” when
you need to leave. You know how to behave in this kind of crowd.
It can be a very different experience if you are travelling in a foreign country and
find yourself in a crowd moving down the street. You may have trouble figuring out
what is happening. Is the crowd just the usual morning rush, or is it a political protest
of some kind? Perhaps there was some sort of accident or disaster. Is it safe in this
crowd, or should you try to extract yourself? How can you find out what is going
on? Although you are in it, you may not feel like you are part of this crowd. You
may not know what to do or how to behave.
Even within one type of crowd, different groups exist and different behaviors are on
display. At a rock concert, for example, some may enjoy singing along, others may
prefer to sit and observe, while still others may join in a mosh pit or try crowd
surfing. On February 28, 2010, Sydney Crosby scored the winning goal against the
United States team in the gold medal hockey game at the Vancouver Winter
Olympics. Two hundred thousand jubilant people filled the streets of downtown
Vancouver to celebrate and cap off two weeks of uncharacteristically vibrant, joyful
street life in Vancouver. Just over a year later, on June 15, 2011, the Vancouver
Canucks lost the seventh hockey game of the Stanley Cup finals against the Boston
Bruins. One hundred thousand people had been watching the game on outdoor
screens. Eventually 155,000 people filled the downtown streets. Rioting and looting
led to hundreds of injuries, burnt cars, trashed storefronts and property damage
totaling an estimated $4.2 million. Why was the crowd response to the two events
so different?
A key insight of sociology is that the simple fact of being in a group changes your
behavior. The group is a phenomenon that is more than the sum of its parts. Why do
we feel and act differently in different types of social situations? Why might people
of a single group exhibit different behaviors in the same situation? Why might
people acting similarly not feel connected to others exhibiting the same behavior?
These are some of the many questions sociologists ask as they study people and
societies.
1.1. What Is Sociology?
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