The Social Psychology of Crowds

The Social Psychology of Crowds - Ideas, Identity and Impact

The Keele Policing Academic Collaboration (KPAC) host a range of CPD events for police officers, academics and a range of other professionals. View the KPAC events calendar to find out more: http://bit.ly/2CGgAjJ

This lecture will focus on the nature of crowds to illustrate their importance for social theory and policy. The lecture will outline a conceptual approach for understanding the psychology that drives collective action in crowd events and highlight how Clifford’s research has helped transform understanding of ‘riots’ and football ‘hooliganism’. But beyond theory, Clifford will also address how these research contributions have been made possible through using ethnography, participant action research and knowledge co-production as primary organising concepts. In so doing, he will explore how crowd research is reclaiming a relevance for social psychology through asking powerful and sometime difficult questions, opening inter-disciplinary dialogue and cementing pathways to social and political impact.

Clifford Stott graduated from Plymouth Polytechnic with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 1988 and gained his PhD on the Intergroup Dynamics of Crowd Behaviour from the University of Exeter in 1996. He then held lectureships and Senior Lectureships at the Universities of Bath, Abertay and Liverpool before moving to the School of Law at the University of Leeds in 2013, where he became a Principal Research Fellow in Security and Justice. He took up his Chair in Social Psychology in March 2016. Since arriving at Keele he has established and is Co-Director of the University’s Research Centre the Keele Policing Academic Collaboration (KPAC). His work revolves around crowd psychology, ‘riots’ and ‘public order’ policing. He works regularly with police forces, Governments and football authorities across the world. His research has been acknowledged in policy documents on the policing of crowds issued by the Council of Europe and the European Union. His research underpins policy reforms of ‘public order’ policing in the UK, Sweden, Denmark and Australia. Reflecting the influence of his work he was awarded the 2014 ‘Celebrating Impact’ First Prize for ‘Outstanding Impact on Public Policy’ by the ESRC. In 2015 the ESRC also acknowledged his work as one of the top 50 ‘Landmark Research’ achievements of its 50-year history.