MARCO TECNOLÓGICO

There is currently a lack of Hajj studies in relation to crowd psychology. In fact, the Hajj is a unique event that needs its own careful area of research in order to interrogate traditional views of crowd behaviour that are not entirely relevant for the context of the Hajj. The traditional view of crowd behaviour is that the group adversely affects the individual, because of its essentially irrational, volatile nature. This view was typified by the writings of Gustave Le Bon, who saw in the crowd a regression to an uncivilized, hostile state, which he contrasted to the well-adjusted, prosocial behaviour normally displayed by modern man.

When in the crowd, a person relies on primal ‘instinct’, which he equated with barbarism.

The group is thus a conduit for irrational, destructive, self-defeating behaviours.

The social identity approach and self-categorization theory in particular allow us to view group processes in a more nuanced way. When viewed in the light of these approaches, the group can be seen as potentially a source of safety for group members, in that people who identify with the group’s shared social identity are more likely to expect help and give support, and are more likely to be able to coordinate with other people because of shared understanding and shared goals. The result is that these people are more likely to cope with adverse circumstances because they can rely on other people to support them.

Collective identity, then, has the potential to help prevent stress and injury. We can define this as resilience – the ability to cope with stressful, distressing, or dangerous situations. In this new way of looking at resilience, the group is the basis for resilience. Pursuing this line of thought further, such a way of viewing the group links it with the idea of community –

‘community resilience’ is increasingly being used to describe the extent to which a particular community is able to cope with emergencies, by harnessing local resources.

In other words, the crowd can be thought of as like a community, despite the former term referring to a here and now collective and the latter designating a stable and established set of relationships. When the crowd is a psychological crowd, and not merely a physical crowd, it can have the same properties as a community, providing support and resilience, as well as collective self-regulation and well being.

The crowd event under question in the current study, the Hajj, is not the type of event in which there is an expectation of conflict. On the contrary, it is a celebratory crowd, a ritual crowd in which the constituent members have come together for a common purpose. It might justifiably be asked, then, what such a crowd might have in common with the riot crowds discussed in this chapter, for instance the residents who took part in the St Paul’s riot in 1980.

The relevance of studies of crowd conflict is that this literature tells us that crowd events are typically intergroup events. In the St Paul’s riot, there were two discrete and distinct groups:

the local community and the police who were sent to quell the disturbances. Whether a peaceful crowd stays peaceful is partly a function of its relationship with other groups, and given that a police action was the catalyst for the St Paul’s riot, it is unsurprising that events

escalated and violence was directed towards the police. The ESIM approach built on such observations and focused on the intergroup nature of crowd events.

While Hajjis are not typically in a position of opposition to the Hajj management and emergency services, they nevertheless represent a group that is distinct from those whose role it is to facilitate the safety of the Hajjis. That the Hajj is an intergroup event becomes apparent when there is a failure of management. When management succeeds and events are proceeding smoothly, the management staff is invisible, even though they are always there. It is only in moments of crisis that the presence or absence of management staff becomes a concern for crowd members. The management is always highly aware of both groups.

The key hypotheses were that as the crowd density increased, so reported levels of safety would decrease. Additionally, I expected that each of the following variables would increase reported enjoyment in the crowd and feeling safe in the Hajj crowd: social identification (on different identity measures), expected support, and management competence (as intergroup measures). (There were three ways of looking at social identification: identification with others in the crowd, social identification as a Muslim, and perceptions that others identify as Muslims; cf. Neville & Reicher, 2011.) Management competence was included as a predictor of safety on the assumption that pilgrims’ beliefs in the ability of Hajj personnel to handle the events effectively would make them feel safer.

I also expected that social identification would moderate the effects of density on reported levels of safety. There was expected to be a relationship of moderation for both identification with the crowd and perceptions of others’ identification as Muslim (since each of these bring up directly to shared identification with others in the crew), but no moderation effect for participants’ own identification as Muslim (since this corresponds to the identification with a social category).

A first supplementary hypothesis for this moderation is that the negative relation between crowd density and safety should only apply for those relatively low in identification. A second supplementary hypothesis is that density will actually increase reported safety for those high in identification with the crowd. The third supplementary hypothesis is that the logical expectation is that, if safety is in part a function of perceived support from those one

identifies with, the more of these others present (measured in increased density), the greater the degree of safety. Fourthly, the cause for this moderation effect is because identification with the crowd and perceptions that others identify as Muslims both increase perceptions of support, which in turn increase reported safety. Lastly, if the hypothesized social, psychological mechanisms behind (at least some of) the safety of the crowd were correct, we would also require them to help explain demographic differences in safety. Our distinct hypothesis was that any differences among national groups in reported safety would be an indirect consequence of both identification with the crowd and perceived support.

It is important to consider the Hajj in the light of findings relating to intergroup relationships, such as studies on crowd conflict, because the Hajj management is vital in determining people’s safety and how they experience the Hajj. Since there is almost no psychological research on the Hajj, in the next chapter I will use a crowd psychology perspective to explore crowd processes during this large-scale religious event.