Research On Group Behavior In Public Crisis And On The Countermeasures

China is in the period of transformation of economy and society. All kinds of crises resulted from different conflicts and problems are unavoidable. Therefore it is urgent to improve the government's capacity of crisis management.The public and the officials are the most important groups of crisis management. As the object crisis threatened, the public's behavior influences the process of the crisis directly. While the officials play a key and deciding role in crisis management. In the background of SARS the paper studies the group behavior of the public and the officials in crisis.The paper analyzes the forming and influential factors of the public's group behavior by the instance: the scare buying in SARS and considers that it is a course of imitation. It draws the conclusion that individual is influenced by others through social interaction which leads to the consentaneous behavior according to Social Psychology. Simultaneously, analyzing from the point of view of Behavioral Economics, by establishing the model of informational cascade, it draws a conclusion that the individual adjust their anticipation through observing the action of others which leads to the consentaneous behavior. And some countermeasures against the public's group behavior are offered.Based on Game theory and Olson's Collective Action theory, the paper establishes the model of dilemma of collective action to analyze the officials' irrational collective behavior resulted from individual rationality. And it indicates that absence of the institution of rules and selective incentives is the reason that the officials getting into the dilemma of collective action. And some institutional arrangements to eliminate the offocials' group behavior are offered.