Why do People Riot?

This is a guest post by Allison Gamble who writes for forensicpsychology.net.

Please feel free to comment!

Psychology behind riots

Rioting as a social phenomenon can be difficult to understand. Morals and social values seem to fly out the window. Average people, people wouldn't normally steal, assault others, or commit vandalism, suddenly turn to looting and random acts of violence, often without even attempting to conceal their identities. What makes people behave this way? Understanding riots requires delving into various theories the fields of social and forensic psychology.

Psychologists, sociologists, and laypeople alike have various theories as to what makes people riot. Poverty could account for some rioting behavior, particularly looting. Perhaps rioters have low self-esteem, are politically motivated, belong to gangs, or simply find the act of rioting exciting. In the big picture, all of these theories may be correct, but none of them alone explain riots.

Sports analyst Bobby Brooks identified several contributing factors in the riot that broke out in Vancouver, Canada in June 2011, when the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup finals. The elements Brooks notes were present not only in the Vancouver riots, but also in other incidents that caught public attention in 2011, including the English riots in August and the uprisings in Egypt and Syria. These same factors also shaped the riots that broke out in America during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and in the wake of the Rodney King verdict in 1992.

According to Brooks, pre-existing conditions, the physical environment, cultural and subcultural norms, social conditions, group dynamics, mob psychology, and an instigating event work together to spark a riot. A crowded physical environment that can't easily be escaped, a prevailing sense of helplessness, distrust of law enforcement, and a culture or subculture with some degree of violence as a norm all form the preconditions for an instigating event to spark disorder, while group dynamics and mob psychology give the riot a life of its own.

Physical environment

Riots break out in cities, and inner city neighborhoods see more rioting than other areas. When the Vancouver riot broke out, the normally congested downtown area was even more crowded than usual between fans arriving for the game and transportation problems afterward. Similarly, the English riots broke out in the confines of crowded cities. The same was true of the American race riots and recent political riots in Egypt and Syria. In these cases, many of the rioters lived at or near the scene of the riot. Even if they had wanted to leave, they would've had nowhere else to go.

Cultural and subcultural norms

Not everyone in a community participates in a riot. Those who do tend to belong to a subculture where some amount of violence is normal, law enforcement is highly mistrusted, or both. Many social psychologists have pointed out rioters overwhelmingly tend to be young and male. Though this characteristic is common with gang members as well, obviously not all rioters belong to gangs.

Within the subculture of sports, fans tend to accept low levels of violence during a highly charged game. Insults and blows exchanged between fans of opposing teams are common. If other conditions favorable to rioting are present, this low normal level of violence can easily escalate.

Social conditions

The breakout of a riot is usually fueled by a prevailing sense of helplessness and hopelessness,  whether due to economic factors, such as poverty and high unemployment; to an oppressive government; to discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or social class; or to profound collective disappointment. These factors were obviously present in the 2011 English riots, the riots of the Arab Spring, and America’s race riots.

At first glance, the Vancouver riot doesn't appear to share this element: the rioters were mostly not poor or oppressed. However, the Vancouver rioters had experienced profound disappointment and a sense of helplessness from the outcome of the hockey game. The Canucks, after years on a losing streak, had come within reach of the Stanley Cup, raising fans’ hopes. Losing by a small margin in the final game, an incident completely outside the fans’ control, dashed those fervent hopes and left fans immensely agitated.

Instigating event

However small or insignificant, there must be an instigating event for a riot to start. The Canucks’ loss, the British government cutting its welfare program, and the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King were all events that crystallized the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness in the groups they affected. Each served as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

Mob psychology

When a riot begins, the mob takes on a life of its own. Individuals set aside their quotidian identities and values and take on what they perceive to be the norms and values of a group. While this happens on a small scale in normal socialization, rioting takes this tendency to the extreme. In an instant, people caught up in a riot begin acting not as themselves, but as the mob. Sudden membership in a coherently chaotic and highly energetic group accounts for the vandalism, looting, and assault, perpetrated by normally civil individuals. Rioters' lack of concern about showing their faces to TV cameras illustrates the power of the feeling of collective belonging to override regard for the law and normal propriety generally. The collective effervescence of such a highly energized situation also creates the feeling of excitement some have identified as a motivation for rioting in and of itself.

Rioting doesn't happen just because people are poor, dissatisfied with government, or socially oppressed. Nor do they start purely because some participants find them exciting. The psychology behind rioting is much more complex, encompassing all of these factors in a situation that catalyzes an outbreak. Considering all of these factors crucial to the psychology of riots, we can identify the preconditions for rioting before an incident breaks out.