All flashcards
Flashcard 1: What is an interest group (as contrasted with a social movement)?
Answer: An organized group seeking policy influence, often via lobbying. More formal and institutionalized than social movements.
Flashcard 2: What is a social movement organization (SMO)?
Answer: A formal organization that coordinates and supports a movement’s goals. Provides infrastructure and continuity beyond spontaneous action.
Flashcard 3: What is a counter-movement?
Answer: A movement organized in opposition to another movement’s goals. Emerges when original movement threatens established interests.
Flashcard 4: Identify the concept: a movement uses slogans and narratives to define a problem and propose solutions.
Answer: Framing. Strategic communication shapes how issues are understood and acted upon.
Flashcard 5: What is a selective incentive in collective action theory?
Answer: A benefit or cost applied only to contributors to encourage participation. Rewards or penalties target contributors to overcome free-riding.
Flashcard 6: What is a free rider in collective action?
Answer: A person who benefits from a public good without contributing to it. Creates the collective action problem by undermining group contributions.
Flashcard 7: What is the collective action problem?
Answer: Individuals may free-ride, reducing participation in public-good efforts. Rational actors avoid costs when they can gain benefits without participating.
Flashcard 8: What is political process theory of social movements?
Answer: Movements grow when political opportunities and mobilizing structures align. Combines structural factors with agency in explaining movement emergence.
Flashcard 9: What is a selective incentive in social movement participation?
Answer: A benefit or cost given only to contributors, not to nonparticipants. Overcomes free-riding by making benefits conditional on participation.
Flashcard 10: What term describes the initial stage when people first recognize a social problem?
Answer: Emergence (incipient stage). The emergence stage involves initial awareness and discontent, setting the foundation for organized collective response to grievances.
Flashcard 11: What is resource mobilization theory of social movements?
Answer: Success depends on access to money, people, and organization. Emphasizes material resources as key to movement success.
Flashcard 12: Which type of social movement seeks to change specific laws or policies?
Answer: Reform movement. Targets specific aspects within existing system.
Flashcard 13: Which type of social movement seeks to transform an entire social system?
Answer: Revolutionary movement. Aims for complete overthrow of existing order.
Flashcard 14: Which type of social movement aims to preserve the status quo and resist change?
Answer: Reactionary (conservative) movement. Opposes progressive changes to maintain tradition.
Flashcard 15: Which type of social movement seeks limited change in individual behavior rather than institutions?
Answer: Alternative movement. Focuses on personal lifestyle changes, not systemic reform.
Flashcard 16: Identify the correct sequence of stages in the social movement life cycle.
Answer: Emergence → coalescence → bureaucratization → decline. Movements evolve from spontaneous to organized to institutionalized.
Flashcard 17: Which term describes a movement strategy that uses nonviolent disruption to gain attention?
Answer: Civil disobedience. Peaceful law-breaking challenges unjust systems.
Flashcard 18: Identify the movement type: seeks limited change to a specific policy or issue.
Answer: Reform movement. Works within system for incremental improvements.
Flashcard 19: What is a riot in the context of collective behavior?
Answer: A violent public disturbance by a crowd, often directed at people or property. Collective violence erupts from grievances or triggering events.
Flashcard 20: What is the difference between a crowd and a mob?
Answer: A mob is a crowd that becomes emotional and potentially violent or destructive. Crowds lack emotion; mobs are emotionally charged.
Flashcard 21: What is groupthink, and what is its key outcome in decision-making groups?
Answer: Desire for consensus suppresses dissent, producing poor or irrational decisions. Conformity pressure overrides critical thinking.
Flashcard 22: What is group polarization in the context of movements and crowds?
Answer: Group discussion shifts attitudes toward more extreme positions in the group’s direction. Risk-shift and repeated exposure amplify initial tendencies.
Flashcard 23: What is deindividuation and how can it affect collective action?
Answer: Reduced self-awareness in groups can increase impulsive or norm-violating behavior. Anonymity in crowds weakens personal restraints.
Flashcard 24: What is the bystander effect as it relates to group action?
Answer: Helping decreases as group size increases due to diffusion of responsibility. Each person assumes others will help, reducing individual action.
Flashcard 25: What is the collective good (public good) in collective action theory?
Answer: A nonexcludable benefit available to all, regardless of individual contribution. Cannot exclude non-contributors from enjoying benefits.
Flashcard 26: Which term best fits: rapid spread of protest tactics across regions via networks?
Answer: Diffusion (of social movements). Ideas and strategies spread through activist networks.
Flashcard 27: What is a selective incentive used to reduce the free rider problem?
Answer: A benefit or cost applied only to contributors (not to nonparticipants). Creates exclusive rewards to motivate participation.
Flashcard 28: What is the free rider problem in collective action?
Answer: Individuals benefit from a public good without contributing to its production. Rational actors avoid costs while enjoying collective benefits.
Flashcard 29: What is relative deprivation theory as a cause of collective action?
Answer: Perceived disadvantage compared with others motivates protest and mobilization. Feeling worse off than reference groups triggers collective action.
Flashcard 30: What is framing in social movement theory?
Answer: Shaping how issues are defined to mobilize supporters and legitimize action. Strategic messaging constructs meaning and motivates participation.