What is "mass action"

n. (neruology) the principle that the cortex of the brain operates as a coordinated system with large masses of neural tissue involved in all complex functioning [syn: mass-action principle]

Mass action in sociology refers to the situations where a large number of people behave simultaneously in a similar way but individually and without coordination.

For example, at any given moment, many thousands of people are shopping - without any coordination between themselves, they are nonetheless performing the same mass action. Another, more complicated example would be one based on a work of 19th century German sociologist Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber wrote that capitalism evolved when the Protestant ethic influenced large number of people to create their own enterprises and engage in trade and gathering of wealth. In other words, the Protestant ethic was a force behind an unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that led to the development of capitalism.

A bank run is mass action with sweeping implications. Upon hearing news of a bank's anticipated insolvency, hundreds or thousands of bank depositors simultaneously rush down to a bank branch to withdraw their deposits, and protect their savings.

More developed forms of mass actions are group behavior and group action.

Mass action may refer to:

• Law of mass action, in chemistry, a postulate of reactions
• Mass action law (electronics), in semiconductor electronics, a relationship between intrinsic and doped carrier concentrations
• Mass action (sociology), in sociology, a term for situations in which a large number of people behave simultaneously in similar ways individually and without coordination
• Mass Action Principle (neuroscience), in neuroscience, the belief that memory and learning are distributed and can't be isolated within any one area of the brain
• Mass tort, or mass action, in law, which is when plaintiffs form a group to sue a defendant (for similar alleged harms)