Steve Reicher

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Stephen D Reicher (Steve Reicher) is Professor of Social Psychology and former Head of
the School of Psychology at the University of St Andrews.
Reicher completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Bristol. At
Bristol, Reicher worked closely with Henri Tajfel and John Turner (authors of social
identitytheory). He held positions at the University of Dundee and University of
Exeter before moving to St Andrews in 1998. He is a former Associate Editor of the Journal
of Community and Applied Social Psychology and Chief Editor (with Margaret Wetherell) of
the British Journal of Social Psychology. Reicher is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh and consultant editor for a number of journals including Scientific American
Mind. His research is in the area of social psychology, focusing on group processes such
as crowd behaviour, tyranny and leadership. He is broadly interested in the issues of group
behaviour and the individual-social relationship. His research interests can be grouped into
three areas. The first is an attempt to develop a model of crowd action that accounts for
both social determination and social change. The second concerns the construction of
social categories through language and action. The third concerns political rhetoric and
mass mobilisation especially around the issue of national identity.
Contents
[hide]

1Crowd Psychology Theory

2The St Pauls' Study

3Most influential publications

4External links

Crowd Psychology Theory[edit]

Reicher's work on crowd psychology has been path-breaking. He challenged the dominant
notion of crowd as site of Irrationality and deindividuation. His social identity model
(SIM,1982, 1984, 1987) of crowd behaviour suggests that people are able to act as one in
crowd events not because of 'contagion' or Social facilitation but because they share a
common social identity. This common identity specifies what counts as normative conduct.
Unlike the 'classic' theories, which tended to presume that collectivity was associated with
uncontrolled violence (due to a regression to instinctive drives or a pre-existing 'racial

unconscious'), the social identity model explicitly acknowledges variety by suggesting that
different identities have different norms some peaceful, some conflictual and that, even
where crowds are conflictual, the targets will be only those specified by the social identity of
the crowd.

The St Pauls' Study[edit]

Reicher's (1984) St Pauls' study was a powerful riposte to the whole 'irrationalist' tradition,
from Gustav Le Bon to deindividuation. But the study and the social identity model left a
number of unanswered questions and hence possible explanatory problems. The emphasis
on social identity as the determinant of collective behaviour potentially led to a rather
unidimensional reading of the nature of crowd conflict: conflict was read off from the St
Pauls social identity, as if the participants were already violent; yet this left unexplained
how such conflict emerged and escalated over time during the riot. An unanswered
question was therefore how an otherwise peaceful crowd might become conflictual. Without
further specification, the model risked being read, like Allports account, as seeing conflict
as a product of fixed and pre-given identities that were simply acted out. How could
behavioural change in the crowd be grasped without falling back into something like the
LeBonian account in which the peaceful, rational individual is simply subsumed by the
(malign) influence of the crowd?
The analysis of the St Pauls riot was like a snap-shot, examining the nature of the crowd
targets, without examining in detail how conflict actually emerged from relations with the
police, and without including the perspective of the police as a possible contribution to the
events. Subsequent studies of crowd events by Reicher, Clifford Stott and John
Drurytherefore began to address these absences. In each of a number of different type of
crowd events, a similar pattern of interaction between crowd and police was identified. The
observation of this pattern of interaction across these collaborative studies led to the
Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM) of crowd conflict, which focuses on the emergence
and development of crowd conflict.
Moreover, the ESIM provides the conceptual resources for understanding the possible
articulation between social and psychological change. Thus the ESIM suggests that identity
change is a function of changed context, brought about through the (often unintended)
consequences of one's own actions. The consequences are often unintended and
unanticipated because crowd members' actions may be interpreted in contrasting ways by
outgroups such as the police. The wider significance of such change is in terms of future
action. A limited 'local' protest becomes understood as part of a wider struggle against
national or even global 'injustice' where participants are cast as part of a wider oppositional
group, where such opposition becomes legitimised by illegitimate outgroup (police, state)
action and where there is a perception of wider support and that the collective is indeed
capable of translating its ideas into reality. Particular experiences in collective action can
therefore be significant in their role of encouraging people to get involved in further actions,
which might themselves be forces for social change. Put simply, crowd conflict is argued to
be meaningful, but can be a locus of social and psychological change because that
meaning may be contested.
Reicher collaborated with Professor Alex Haslam of the University of Exeter on
the BBC television programme The Experiment, which examined conflict, order, rebellion

and tyranny in the behaviour of a group of individuals held in a simulated prison

environment. The experiment (which became known as the BBC Prison Study) reexamined issues raised by the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) and led to a number of
publications in leading psychology journals. Amongst other things, these challenged the
role account of tyranny associated with the SPE as well as broader ideas surrounding
the Banality of evil, and advanced a social identity-based understanding of the dynamics of
resistance.

Most influential publications[edit]

Books

Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S.
(1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

Reicher, S. D. & Hopkins, N. (2001). Self and nation: Categorization, contestation

and mobilisation. London: Sage.

Haslam, S.A; Reicher, S.D. & Platow, M.J. (2010) "The New Psychology Of
Leadership: Identity, Influence And Power" New York: Psychology Press

Journal articles

Reicher, S. D. (1984). The St. Pauls riot: An explanation of the limits of crowd action
in terms of a social identity model. European Journal of Social Psychology, 14, 121.

Reicher, S. & Potter, J. (1985). Psychological theory as intergroup perspective: A

comparative analysis of scientific and lay accounts of crowd events. Human
Relations, 38, 167189.

Reicher S. D., & Hopkins, N. (1996). Seeking influence through characterising selfcategories: An analysis of anti-abortionist rhetoric. British Journal of Social
Psychology, 35, 297311.

Reicher, S. (1996). The Crowd century: Reconciling practical success with

theoretical failure. British Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 53553.

Reicher S. D., & Hopkins, N. (1996). Self-category constructions in political rhetoric;

An analysis of Thatcher's and Kinnock's speeches concerning the British miners' strike
(198485) European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 353371.

Reicher, S. D., & Haslam, S. A. (2006). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The
BBC Prison Experiment. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 140. [1]

Reicher, S. D., Haslam, S. A., & Hopkins, N. (2005). Social identity and the
dynamics of leadership: Leaders and followers as collaborative agents in the
transformation of social reality. Leadership Quarterly. 16, 547568.

Reicher, S.D. (1982). The determination of collective behaviour (pp. 4183). In H.

Tajfel (ed.), Social identity and intergroup relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Reicher, S.D. (1984b). The St Pauls' riot: An explanation of the limits of crowd
action in terms of a social identity model. European Journal of Social Psychology, 14,
121. Also in: Murphy, J., John, M. & Brown, H. (1984), (eds.). Dialogues and debates
in social psychology (pp. 187205). London: Lawrence Erlbaum/Open University

Reicher, S.D. (1987). Crowd behaviour as social action. In J.C. Turner, M.A. Hogg,
P.J. Oakes, S.D. Reicher & M.S. Wetherell, Rediscovering the social group: A selfcategorization theory (pp. 171202). Oxford: Blackwell.[2]

Reicher, S., Spears, R. & Postmes, T. (1995). A social identity model of

deindividuation phenomena. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (eds.), European Review of
Social Psychology, 6, 16198.

Reicher, S. (1996) Social identity and social change: Rethinking the context of
social psychology. In W.P. Robinson (Ed.) Social groups and identities: Developing the
legacy ofHenri Tajfel (pp. 317336). London: Butterworth.

Reicher, S. (1996). The Battle of Westminster: Developing the social identity

model of crowd behaviour to explain the initiation and development of collective
conflict.European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 11534. [3]

Reicher, S. (2001). The psychology of crowd dynamics. In M.A. Hogg and R.S.
Tindale (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Group processes (pp. 182
208). Oxford: Blackwell. [4]

Stott, C., Hutchison, P. & Drury, J. (2001). 'Hooligans' abroad? Inter-group

dynamics, social identity and participation in collective 'disorder' at the 1998 World Cup
Finals.British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 359384.

Stott, C. & Reicher, S. (1998a). Crowd action as inter-group process: Introducing

the police perspective. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 509529.

Stott, C. & Reicher, S. (1998b). How conflict escalates: The inter-group dynamics of
collective football crowd violence. Sociology, 32, 35377.[5]

Drury, J., Cocking, C., Beale, J., Hanson, C. & Rapley, F. (2005). The
phenomenology of empowerment in collective action. British Journal of Social
Psychology, 44, 309328.

Reicher, S. (2001). Studying psychology, studying racism. In M. Augoustinos & K. J.

Reynolds. (Eds.), Understanding prejudice, Racism, and Social conflict. London: Sage.

Drury, J. & Reicher, S. (1999). The intergroup dynamics of collective empowerment:

Substantiating the social identity model of crowd behaviour. Group Processes and
Intergroup Relations, 2, 381402.

Drury J. & Reicher S. (2000) Collective action and psychological change: The
emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 579
-604. [6]

Drury, J. & Reicher, S. (2005). Explaining enduring empowerment: A comparative

study of collective action and psychological outcomes. European Journal of Social
Psychology, 35, 3558.[7]

Drury, J., Reicher, S. & Stott, C. (2003) Transforming the boundaries of collective
identity: From the local anti-road campaign to global resistance? Social Movement
Studies, 2, 191212.

Reicher, S. Haslam, S.A. & Rath, R. (2008) "Making a virtue of evil: A five step
social identity model of development of collective hate Social and Personality
Psychology Compass 2/3 (2008): 13131344, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00113.x [8]