“If most members of a group make the same behavioral decision – to join a riot, for example – we can infer from this that most ended up sharing the same norm or belief about the situation, whether or not they did so at the beginning.”
– Mark Granovetter ‘Threshold Models of Collective Behavior’.
Collective processes are driven by individual thresholds. Whether a natural person, a juristic entity or a nation state, each ‘individual’ varies in their limits for joining or leaving a group activity. However, according to American sociologist and professor at Stanford University, Mark Granovetter, a decision to engage in (or depart from) a collective activity depends heavily on how many others have already decided to do so – regardless of whether that decision concerns the right time to leave a dinner party or to join a riot.
