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Consistent behavior patterns are created by variable acts, and generally repeat only because detailed acts change. The accepted explanation of this paradox, that "cues" cause the changes, is irrelevant; it is unsupported by evidence, and incapable of dealing with novel situations. The apparent purposefulness of variations of behavioral acts can be accepted as fact in the framework of a control-system model of behavior. A control system, properly organized for its environment, will produce whatever output is required in order to achieve a constant sensed result, even in the presence of unpredictable disturbances. A control-system model of the brain provides a physical explanation for the existence of goals or purposes, and shows that behavior is the control of input, not output. A systematic investigation of controlled quantities can reveal an organism's structure of control systems. The structure is hierarchical, in that some quantities are controlled as the means for controlling higher-order quantities. The output of a higher-order system is not a muscle force, but a reference level (variable) for a lower-order controlled quantity. The highest-order reference levels are inherited and are associated with the meta-behavior termed reorganization. When controlled quantities are discovered, the related stimulus-response laws become trivially predictable. Variability of behavior all but disappears once controlled quantities are known. Behavior itself is seen in terms of this model to be self-determined in a specific and highly significant sense that calls into serious doubt the ultimate feasibility of operant conditioning of human beings by other human beings.

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Perception control systems and hierarchies of such systems are described. Perception control system theory asserts that human beings adjust their actions to control their perceptions. Purposive individuals adjust their actions to counter variable circumstances that prevent their perceptions from matching their objectives. Collective action can occur when two or more purposive individuals generate similar objectives independently, or when they do so interdependently, or when they adopt them from a third party. This explanation addresses the most characteristic feature of human behavior in temporary gatherings (crowds): alternating and vaned sequences of individual and collective action. A simulation program is described that varies up to three separate sets of control systems (seeking a destination, avoiding collisions, and seeking the path of other individuals) for each of 1 to 255 individuals constituting a gathering. The program features are illustrated with successive panels of screen prints of the development of nine different sequences of individual and collective action observed repeatedly in field research on temporary gathenngs. Theoretical, research, and practical implications are noted. An appendix descnbes program parameters.Computer simulation provides another tool with which social scientists can represent and examine complex human actions. In this essay we report on a new theory and methodology for simulating purposive individual and collective action in crowds. Although we are not the first to simulate crowd behavior, our simulations offer some theoretical and methodological innovations to that specific area of inquiry and to the understanding of purposive human behavior in genera!.t First, we briefly indicate some of the advantages and limitations of computer simulation as a methodology for studying human actions. Second, we review the theoretical model of purposive action on which our simulations are based. Third, we briefly describe the computer program derived from that theoretical model