The sociological explanation of the tendency towards collective behavior among Iranian youth: The case of study; Fars province youth

Researchers have explored an investigation into collective behaviors as a form of collective actions like other social realities and various theories have been proposed in this connection. The present study aimed to explain the tendency to collective behavior among the youth in the Fars province from a sociological perspective, emphasizing the Theory of Collective Behavior by Smelser. The number of 1875 young people in the Fars province including six cities of Shiraz, Abadeh, Fasa, Kazeroun, Lar and Mamasani were selected by multi-stage random sampling method. Its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha and its validity was evaluated by formal validity. Structural equations analysis indicated that the variable of relative deprivation had a significant positive impact on the youths' collective behavior such that direct effect was 0.218 and the indirect effect was 0.118. In addition, two variables of social participation and institutional trust were found to have a significant negative effect on the collective behavior and they had effects of equal to -0.264 and 0.119, respectively. In the meantime, the feeling of relative deprivation had a significant negative effect on three variables of social participation (-0.367), institutional trust (-0.139) and interpersonal trust (- 0.136). The findings demonstrated that as feelings of deprivation increase, i.e., both economic and social feelings, the tendency towards collective behavior increases, so do social trust at both interpersonal and institutional levels, with the person not showing any tendency to participate in the society in various areas.