John Drury is a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Sussex. His core research is in the area of crowd psychology.
Drury completed his undergraduate degree in social psychology at the University of Sussex (1992). He went on to complete his MSc (1993) and PhD (1996) in Psychology at the University of Exeter, under the supervision of Professor Steve Reicher. On completing his PhD, Drury worked as a Research Psychologist at the Trust for the Study of Adolescence (later known as Young People in Focus) from 1996 to 1998, providing research-based evidence about communication between young people and adults. He joined the faculty at the University of Sussex in 1998, where he continued his research in crowd behaviour.
Drury, as well as his direct University of Sussex colleague Stephen Reicher, are both participants in the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The core of Drury's research is on the processes of crowd conflict and psychological change in relation to direct action events. This research stems from, and contributed to the development of, the social identity tradition. His work includes research on the processes of crowd conflict and change in relation to anti-poll tax protests, anti-roads direct actions, anti-capitalist events, and football crowds. Along with his colleagues, Professor Steve Reicher and Dr Clifford Stott, Drury identified causes of conflict within crowd events, and how these conflicts can escalate into riots. This research expanded on the social identity theory and Reicher's Social Identity Model, [1] and led to the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM). [2] The ESIM challenges the traditional notion of the crowd as being inherently violent and irrational, and suggests that people in a crowd act in relation to their shared social identity.
More recently, Drury’s research has examined how participants may feel empowered through crowd experiences, and how such positive emotions might affect other areas of their lives. A large-scale interview study led by Drury found that the act of protesting itself can be good for you, [3] due to the feelings of encouragement and confidence emerging from experiences of collective action. The main factors contributing to the sense of empowerment included the realisation of the collective identity and shared expectations of mutual support.
Drury also has research interests in the psychology of mass emergency behaviour (MEB). Early models of MEB suggested that in situations of collective threat, the generic reaction from people is one of mass panic. However, in the research literature there are many examples of rational behaviour when escaping threatening and dangerous situations, for example co-operation and helping behaviours. Drury’s research study carried out in the aftermath of the London bombings of 7 July 2005 showed that rather than panicking or acting selfishly, the majority of survivors acted with courtesy and respect towards their fellow survivors, [4] and in many cases also acted as the first responders to an emergency.
Journal articles
Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group, or between social groups. The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behaviour, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, leadership studies, business and managerial studies, as well as communication studies.
A category of social psychology known as "crowd psychology" or "mob psychology" examines how the psychology of a group of people differs from the psychology of any one person within the group. The study of crowd psychology looks into the actions and thought processes of both the individual members of the crowd and of the crowd as a collective social entity. The behavior of a crowd is much influenced by deindividuation and by the person's impression of the universality of behavior, both of which conditions increase in magnitude with size of the crowd. Notable theorists in crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904), and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Many of these theories are today tested or used to simulate crowd behaviors in normal or emergency situations. One of the main focuses in these simulation works aims to prevent crowd crushes and stampedes.
Collective action refers to action taken together by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences including psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science and economics.
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other bystanders or witnesses are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so.
A crowd is as a group of people that have gathered for a common purpose or intent. Examples are a demonstration, a sports event, or a looting. A crowd may also simply be made up of many people going about their business in a busy area.
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, although this is a matter of contention. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. As such, social psychologists emphasize the role of internal psychological processes. Other social scientists, such as sociologists, are more concerned with broad social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence events in a given society.
Social representations are a system of values, ideas, metaphors, beliefs, and practices that serve to establish social order, orient participants and enable communication among the members of groups and communities. Social representation theory is a body of theory within social psychology and sociological social psychology. It has parallels in sociological theorizing such as social constructionism and symbolic interactionism, and is similar in some ways to mass consensus and discursive psychology.
Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, reflective listening, or counseling. Peer support is also used to refer to initiatives where colleagues, members of self-help organizations and others meet, in person or online, as equals to give each other connection and support on a reciprocal basis.
The Experiment is a 2002 BBC documentary series in which 15 men are randomly selected to be either "prisoner" or guard, contained in a simulated prison over an eight-day period. Produced by Steve Reicher and Alex Haslam, it presents the findings of what has subsequently become known as the BBC Prison Study. These findings centered around "the social and psychological consequences of putting people in groups of unequal power" and "when people accept inequality and when they challenge it".
Stephen Alexander "Alex" Haslam is a professor of psychology and ARC Australian Laureate Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland.
Social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group.
Stephen David Reicher is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews.
The social identity model of deindividuation effects is a theory developed in social psychology and communication studies. SIDE explains the effects of anonymity and identifiability on group behavior. It has become one of several theories of technology that describe social effects of computer-mediated communication.
A stampede is a situation in which a group of large animals suddenly start running in the same direction, especially because they are excited or frightened. Although the term is most often applied to animals, there are cases of humans stampeding from danger too.
Behavioral contagion is a form of social contagion involving the spread of behavior through a group. It refers to the propensity for a person to copy a certain behavior of others who are either in the vicinity, or whom they have been exposed to. The term was originally used by Gustave Le Bon in his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind to explain undesirable aspects of behavior of people in crowds. In the digital age, behavioral contagion is also concerned with the spread of online behavior and information. A variety of behavioral contagion mechanisms were incorporated in models of collective human behavior.
Crowd manipulation is the intentional or unwitting use of techniques based on the principles of crowd psychology to engage, control, or influence the desires of a crowd in order to direct its behavior toward a specific action. This practice is common to religion, politics and business and can facilitate the approval or disapproval or indifference to a person, policy, or product. The ethicality of crowd manipulation is commonly questioned.
"Social identity approach" is an umbrella term designed to show that there are two methods used by academics to describe certain complex social phenomena- namely the dynamics between groups and individuals. Those two theoretical methods are called social identity theory and self-categorization theory. Experts describe them as two intertwined, but distinct, social psychological theories. The term "social identity approach" arose as an attempt to mitigate against the tendency to conflate the two theories, as well as the tendency to mistakenly believe one theory to be a component of the other. These theories should be thought of as overlapping. While there are similarities, self categorisation theory has greater explanatory scope and has been investigated in a broader range of empirical conditions. Self-categorization theory can also be thought of as developed to address limitations of social identity theory. Specifically the limited manner in which social identity theory deals with the cognitive processes that underpin the behaviour it describes. Although this term may be useful when contrasting broad social psychological movements, when applying either theory it is thought of as beneficial to distinguish carefully between the two theories in such a way that their specific characteristics can be retained.
Intergroup relations refers to interactions between individuals in different social groups, and to interactions taking place between the groups themselves collectively. It has long been a subject of research in social psychology, political psychology, and organizational behavior.
Clifford John Thornton Stott is professor of social psychology at Keele University. He is a specialist in the psychology of crowds, group identity, and football hooliganism.
Benjamin Thomas Cornwell is an American sociologist. He is Professor of Sociology at Cornell University, where he served as Chair from 2020 to 2024. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2007, where he studied under Edward Laumann, Linda Waite, and Jason Beckfield. He works on methods to study issues involving social inequality, the epidemic spread of disease, and collective behavior.
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